


Don't want your money

by Skoll



Series: Seven Devils [2]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Banter, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, FrostIron - Freeform, Loki and Tony think emotionally dissecting each other counts as foreplay, Loki is not above using that against him, M/M, Manipulations, The Avengers are Awesome, Tony Stark Has A Heart, tony and bruce are science bros
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-09
Updated: 2013-07-13
Packaged: 2017-11-24 07:46:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 58,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/632090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skoll/pseuds/Skoll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, understanding a god is actually more dangerous than fighting one.</p><p>(Or: In which Tony figures out something important about Loki's motivations, Loki is only marginally less dangerous as an ally than as an enemy, and the Avengers may have to handle a new threat that they're entirely not prepared for.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the second part of the Seven Devils series. You can read this story without reading the first part, but the first part does establish the character voices I'm using. The titles of each part of this series are taken from Florence + The Machine's song 'Seven Devils.'
> 
> Enjoy.

There is one hard and fast rule to Loki's attacks: regardless of what the god of tricks is doing, regardless of where, he always manages to time it so that his attacks are interrupting something important.

“Fuck, seriously?” Tony asks the air of his workshop when the call to assemble goes up. He's knee deep—metaphorically, Jarvis would find a way to kill him if it was literal—in repairs to one of his repulsors, which was all but destroyed in their last battle with the Mandarin. That's a job hazard Tony is pretty used to, having all his nice shiny technology smashed into bits by the latest impossible superpower of the week, but the last battle managed to not only destroy a repulsor but also dent his helmet, damage a few of his sensors, and also lock one of the knee joints of the suit into place. 

They're all repaired now, barring the repulsor which is mostly repaired—Tony has no reason not to go into battle, not when the Avengers are a man short with Clint's broken arm—but he hasn't gotten to implement any of the upgrades he was meaning to. Also he hasn't slept in something like three days if his clocks are right, though that's usual enough that it probably isn't worth mentioning.

The point is, Tony can go into battle with the armor as it is, and he will. He just wishes he'd had maybe two more hours to finish his repairs and get started on the upgrades. There's a difference between functionality and elegance when it comes to weapons, and Tony's always been a big fan of the latter.

“Very seriously, sir,” Jarvis replies, deadpan in a way that Tony's still proud of himself for programming in. “It appears that Loki is once again wrecking havoc on Manhattan.” Tony perks up at that—at least Loki knows how to get a little mid-battle banter going, as opposed to all the manic laughter and absurd death threats supervillains are so fond of throwing around—and steps away from his lab bench to get into the suit. “Shall I pull up video of the attack, sir?” Jarvis asks.

“Of course,” Tony says, because that's barely even a question. Whatever else the god of tricks is, Loki is astoundingly graceful in a fight, and his antics are usually fun to watch. Jarvis pulls up the video front and center as the suit starts clicking into place.

Loki appears on screen, nearly as large as life, and Tony watches as he... freezes random sections of Rockefeller Center? “Why the hell is he doing that?” Tony asks, watching terrified tourists scramble to get out of the ice skating rink. One guy falls flat on his face trying to get out of the rink, which—okay, Tony might be nominally a hero and everything, but that's still pretty funny to watch. “What is this, some secret deep-seated hatred of Christmas?” Picturing Loki as the Grinch is weird, and Tony stops pretty much immediately.

“Perhaps a deep-seated hatred of tourism?” Jarvis suggests, tone very proper, as yet another ice-skating tourist takes a faceplant into the rink.

“Everybody hates tourists, Jarvis, that isn't just Loki,” Tony says, and then, thoughtfully, “For a guy who's supposed to be a god of fire, Loki does a lot of throwing around ice.” He makes a mental note to figure out why that is later.

The helmet finally seals over Tony's face, and Jarvis connects to the suit beautifully, displays lighting up in front of Tony's eyes. “Maybe you should ask Loki for his motivations in person, sir,” Jarvis says into Tony's ear.

“You know, Jarvis,” Tony says, bouncing slightly in place to make sure the knee joint is moving smoothly. It is, of course—Tony fixed it, and Tony is a genius. “That sounds like a good idea to me.”

And then he powers up the repulsors, and the ceiling peals away, and Tony is flying. He never gets tired of that.

…

Four hours later, Tony is wandering the corridors of the helicarrier, trying to figure out exactly which cell they've put Loki in this time without looking like he's looking. Strictly speaking, Tony isn't cleared to see the god of tricks. Then again, strictly speaking Tony's supposed to be in a stockholder meeting for his company right now, and clearly that isn't happening either.

He should probably remember to send Pepper some sort of apology flowers for that later, actually. He does try to be a mature adult sometimes, and at least this time he remembered the meeting and chose not to go to it, rather than just forgetting. 

Actually, telling Pepper that will probably make it worse. Apology flowers. Lots of them.

Eventually he manages to find the appropriate cell, and steps into the room. Apparently, SHIELD has given up so completely on keeping Loki prisoner at this point that they've downgraded his cell to traditional metal bars rather than the usual tech-heavy approach. Tony gets that; watching your expensive high-tech approaches fail time and time again has to hurt, and after a point actually expecting Loki to stay captured is just idiotic. He talked his way out of whatever Norse god prison Thor took him to, after all, and what are mortals supposed to be able to do compared to that?

What Tony doesn't get is why SHIELD never thought to ask him for help. Throwing tons of money into expensive technology that doesn't work when you've got one of the best engineers in the world at your disposal—well, a little bit at your disposal. Tony might have laughed at Fury for a while first, but he would've helped eventually. That's some sort of disposal—anyway. It's stupid, that they never asked Tony.

Equally stupid is the fact that they have, for some reason, left Loki's mouth unbound. “Whoa,” Tony says, as soon as he notices this. “We're letting you talk now? Why are we letting you talk now? That seems like a terrible idea.” If SHIELD hasn't realized by now that Loki's words are maybe the most dangerous trick the god keeps up his sleeve, then that's a whole new level of stupidity.

Loki grins, a slow, dark thing that reveals almost all of his teeth. “There are few things capable of keeping me silent, Stark,” Loki greets. For all that Loki's behind bars, handcuffed to the doubtlessly uncomfortable metal bench he's sitting on, the god still looks like he's absolutely at ease. Tony's seen that look on people's faces as they invited him into sumptuous penthouses—hell, he's probably worn that face a few times—and Loki manages to pull that off in a jail cell. Now that's panache. “Perhaps your SHIELD simply tired of wasting what few resources they had on futilely attempting to prevent my escape.”

“You are good at being slippery, I'll give you that,” Tony concedes, and pulls up the single plastic chair within the room. It's one of those awful blue ones, and the plastic is cracked almost all the way down one side. Tony sits on it likes it's a throne and smiles at Loki. Two can very easily play at this game. “I really couldn't care less about you escaping, though. I actually came to thank you.”

Amusement flashes across Loki's face, somehow making his expression more dangerous looking as opposed to less. “Oh,” Loki says, and sits up a little straighter, “now this should be good. What could the great Tony Stark possibly have to thank me for?”

“For minimizing your death count,” Tony says, with a brief sharp smile of his own. “I've noticed that about you—you're not a collateral damage kind of supervillain. Take today, for example. Sixteen people injured, most of them harmed by slipping on ice rather than directly by your hand. No casualties. That's much more considerate than your typical supervillain. I thought it deserved positive reinforcement.”

“I live to serve,” Loki says, somehow managing to keep his tone completely free of irony and his smile full of it. He sweeps his hands wide, as if magnanimously gesturing not only to the room in front of him but the world as a whole. “I do like your little world, Stark. I plan to make use of it for some time.”

That's supposed to be a barb, setting him off on some tirade about Loki's last attempt to use his world. Tony neatly ignores it and moves on—he's not that easy to incite, thanks. “See,” he says, as if Loki never spoke at all, “that death count thing? It doesn't just apply to today's random attack. That's been a consistent pattern with you, trying to keep deaths low. I've been thinking about that for a while, about what could possibly give a Norse god the incentive not to squish us all like the ants you claim we are.”

Loki's focus on him sharpens, just a little, and Tony knows he's got the attention of the god. He pushes back the urge to smile and raises one eyebrow, asking for Loki's input. Loki gives it. “And as you are doubtlessly about to share your conclusions with me whether I ask for them or not, I suppose I should at least feign interest.” As ever, Loki's voice says exactly what the god wants it to say—his tone is bored, and one step short of bland. Tony's learning, though, that it's the god's eyes you have to watch out for; and Loki's eyes, unblinkingly set on Tony's face, say that the god is very interested indeed.

Tony knows when a stage is set just right for him. “Well,” he says, and then pauses deliberately before continuing, “and stop me if I get this wrong, but I've been thinking that if we take your words out of the picture and look just at your actions, that whole invading the Earth thing looks very different.” Loki doesn't let his posture change—if Tony's hit on something, Loki's not letting it show. That's disappointing, but not surprising. 

“See, most supervillains, when they try to take over the planet or enact the latest crazy scheme, could care less if civilians get caught in the crossfire. Usually they directly threaten civilians to push us into action, actually. But you're not like that.” Tony holds up his hands and says, wiggling his fingers slightly, “Let's count off your death toll, shall we? Exempting, of course, all the mind control mojo, and the damage done when your army came through. We've got,” and Tony lifts eight fingers, one at a time, “eight SHIELD officers who were caught behind when the base collapsed.”

Again, Tony pauses, and puts on a pensive look. “Except,” he says, as though it's newly occurring to him, “you didn't plan for the tesseract to explode the base. You planned to use its power to come through to Earth, and to steal it. The explosion and subsequent collapse were more like a side effect, really, so I'd say we can take those deaths off your tally.” One by one, he ticks his fingers back down until he's at zero again.

“And let's not forget the one man you targeted in the crowd in Germany, and the man who lost his eye,” Tony says, lifting two fingers for those. “Except,” he says again, slowly, “you spent an awful lot of time posturing in front of that crowd—nice use of Nazi imagery in that distraction, by the way. You picked up pretty rapidly what would most likely cause them to reject you; not bad considering you'd been on Earth for about a week at that point. By the time you finally fired at the old man, Cap had had plenty of time to get in the middle, and I think you knew that. I don't think you planned to kill anyone in the crowd at all.” He lowers one finger. 

“The man who lost his eye also lived,” Tony says, and lowers the other. “I mean. He might have some problems with spatial perception for the rest of his life, but I'm reliably informed that he's recovering well and ultimately will be just fine. Plus I think we can both think of some pretty powerful one-eyed people in our lives and agree that losing an eye is far from losing your life.” Tony takes a second to make sure Fury isn't standing directly behind him; Fury has a way of coming when his name is called. It's creepy. This time, fortunately, they're still alone. “So that leaves us back at zero.”

“Then there was me,” Tony says, raising a finger, “with the whole window stunt. Which, thanks a lot for that, by the way.” He still remembers the feel of that fall—glass shattering at his back and the wind suddenly whipping around him, the feeling of being in freefall and only being about ninety-five percent certain that his suit would be able to catch him in time. He puts the memory aside, though, because that isn't really relevant to his point. “Except I think that if you'd really wanted me dead you would have knifed me like you knifed Thor, and not thrown me out a window. You knew I was Iron Man, so you knew there was a good chance I'd be able to save myself from a fall, considering that my suit can fly. Maybe you weren't perfectly sure, but I like to think that you're smart enough that if you wanted me dead, I would've died. And here I am breathing.” Pointedly, he lowers his fingers again: back to zero.

This part hurts Tony a little, but he breathes in and pushes the hurt aside. “There is one death you definitely get credit for,” Tony says, and lifts his finger for Phil Coulson. “That time, you were absolutely sure, considering you took my earlier suggestion and knifed him. And don't think that I'm disregarding the importance of that one death, because I'm not. Phil Coulson was a good man. He collected Captain America trading cards and always backed illogical sports teams and babysat SHIELD, which is practically a qualification for a sainthood all on its own. He was dating a cellist. He was a better person than I'll ever be.” Breathe, Tony, he reminds himself, and he breathes and makes himself shut up, because that isn't his point. His point is: “But still. That's your grand tally, Loki. You led an assault against the earth and were personally responsible for one death.”

He pauses there, for longer this time. Tony kind of needs to breathe after all of that. More importantly, though, he wants to see how Loki reacts.

Loki reacts—almost not at all. His shoulders don't tense, his posture doesn't change. He still looks like Tony and he could be discussing the weather while sitting in a palace rather than an invasion while in a jail cell. He does smirk, but that isn't an honest emotional reaction; as ever, Loki's mouth lies. “An excellent performance, I grant you,” Loki says, like he's an Olympic judge of lying or something, “but you have concluded nothing, Stark.” Loki is giving him nothing, after all of that.

But Loki's eyes are still wide, and fixed on Tony's like a hawk. So—not nothing, after all.

That gives Tony what he needs to call up his best smug smile. He lifts his hands to eye level and examines his fingers, making the gesture seem idle. “I didn't say I was done, did I?” he asks, and has the gratification of seeing Loki sit forward slightly on his bench. “See, your one death wasn't just some random death. And much as I respected Phil Coulson, I don't think he was actually enough of a threat to you that you had to kill him rather than just illusion him into wasting all his ammo on the walls or something. There were a hundred ways you could've dealt with that situation, and you picked the one way you'd been avoiding until then.” He raises both hands and tilts them, palms up, fingers quirked, the gesture for give me. “So the million dollar question becomes: why?”

“You said it yourself,” Loki says, his tone spiraling closer to the manic-scary thing he was doing during the battle with the Chitauri. “You mortals are ants, and I grew tired of stepping around you when I could merely walk as I pleased. Phil Coulson was in my way, and I removed him.”

“Uh,” Tony says, putting on his best cheesy game show host smile, “sorry, but that's not the correct answer. I'm afraid you'll be going home with just the five hundred thousand dollars and the car after all.” Still smiling, Tony says, “The answer we would have accepted was: Because you didn't really want your invasion to succeed.”

Loki stays tellingly quiet at that, and so Tony continues on. “See, I think you knew just as well as Fury did that we weren't all going to team up and play nicely with each other without a push. If we'd gone up against your army and we weren't fighting together, I can't say what would have happened. Maybe we still would have won. Even if we had it would have been harder, taken longer, and had more collateral casualties and damage occur because of that. I think you killed Phil Coulson to give us our push.”

Loki laughs, and it sounds surprisingly honest to Tony, which probably means he shouldn't actually trust that that laughter is sincere. “I was right,” Loki says, when he's done laughing. “You are an amusing creature, Tony Stark. Tell me, then: why would I want my invasion to fail?”

“That's the part that took me so long to figure out,” Tony says, with a shrug. Sometimes even a conversation like this one needs a little honesty.

“Go on,” Loki says, resting his elbows on his knees and leaning his head forward into the crook of his hands. “Astound me with your conclusions.”

“I think there's something you're afraid of,” Tony says, because it's the only thing that makes any logical sense. “What threw me was what you'd be afraid of. What's out there that's big and bad enough to make a Norse god older than Christianity afraid enough to lead an invasion to Earth? What could possibly touch you?” Tony stops, for a moment, because he's fairly certain Loki momentarily stopped breathing. The god still looks calm as anything, but Tony saw that stutter in the rise and fall of his chest. He's right, Tony realizes, and that—is terrifying. Whatever could frighten Loki could probably crush Tony without breaking a sweat. 

More slowly now, Tony continues, “I still don't know the answer to that question. But I think that whatever it is that scares you, it can tell when people die.” This is the most far-fetched part of his explanation, but Tony notices that Loki doesn't stop him. Cautiously, Tony continues, “As if death somehow catches its attention. I think that's why you kept your death toll so low in the invasion, and I think that's why you avoid casualties now. I think you don't want whatever it is to look too closely at you.” Loki neither confirms nor denies, and Tony, stupidly, makes his first real misstep in this conversation: sympathy. “Loki,” he says, “what the hell is it?”

He can see when Loki pulls away—not physically, of course, but it's as if shutters close behind his eyes, and suddenly Loki is showing nothing at all. Any honesty this conversation had was built on cleverness and misdirection; emotional honesty was definitely not in the playbook. “Tony Stark,” Loki says, slowly, as if testing the feeling of Tony's name on his tongue. “The mortal who believes himself capable of understanding a god. I feel I should applaud your hubris.”

Trying to get the conversation back on an even keel, Tony says, “Pride has been one of my failings, I'll give you that.”

“Your failings,” Loki repeats, and Tony's heart sinks at the smile that spreads over the Norse god's face. “Yes, let us speak of your failings. If you truly believe yourself clever enough to understand me, then you must also be willing to be understood in return.”

Loki leans forward, manacles pulled almost to their fullest extension, and asks, voice terrifying for its gentleness, “Shall we begin with your father?”

Tony laughs, out of self-defense rather than genuine amusement, and says, “Bit of a double standard, there—”

“Yes,” Loki interrupts him, “I know what it is to live in the shadow of a father. I know what it is to feel stifled by a success that can never be reproduced. And yes, I allowed that shadow to shape me in its way. However,” Loki says, and tilts his head to meet Tony's eyes more fully, “I am not Odin. Look at you, Tony Stark, hidden away in your tower with your machines, at how exactly you are your father's copy. The brilliant engineer, the bright mind to revolutionize this world—I grant you, you have your brilliance. Yet everything you were, Howard Stark was first. Every path you tread, every new discovery you make, you make in following the footsteps of your father. You may be an inventor, but because of your father you will never be a discoverer. You will never reach a place your father did not touch. Tell me, Stark: do you ever feel incapable of measuring up?”

That...basically hits every one of Tony's childhood insecurities in one, and Loki clearly isn't done. “But there is one way in which you are not your father; you fear what you can create, as Howard Stark never did.” Tony wants to look away from Loki's eyes and cannot make himself, honestly transfixed. “There is one place in which you shine far brighter than your father, Stark: in your ability to raze anything you stand against to the ground. Your nature is destructive, Tony Stark. Your father may have built weapons that could bring down his enemy, but you,” Loki pauses after stressing the word, and then says again, “you delight in building weapons that destroy with grace, and once took very little care in seeing who they might destroy.” And Tony remembers, the way that Loki means him to, how it felt to see his weapons used against his people. How it felt to know his shrapnel was going to be what killed him. He remembers, intimately, what it feels like to be your own worst enemy.

“Even now,” Loki says, his voice low and compelling, “with your empire of destruction torn down around you, you cannot resist those urges. You speak pretty words of clean energy and technological advancements that benefit mankind, but the place where you feel most yourself, where you feel most alive, is inside the most sophisticated weapon you have ever built. Perhaps you use that weapon for what you call justice, but there will always be that part of you that revels in sheer destruction. That is what you are, Tony Stark, and do not let yourself forget it: someone whose best, most beautiful creations are meant to destroy.” Loki is grinning fiercely at him by now, baring his teeth; Tony feels the blow, as he's meant to. Softly, almost lovingly, Loki finishes, “Ever the Merchant of Death, Stark, even now that you preach peace.” Loki sits back on his bench, once again completely nonchalant, and simply watches Tony, visibly done for the moment.

Tony has to acknowledge that that was—effective. He's never been on this end of Loki's words before, never specifically, and Loki meant those words to harm. In that respect, they succeeded. Even Tony Stark has soft spots, and Loki rather effectively hit most of them.

Tony lowers his eyes and does what he always does with that sort of pain: pushes it away. There's nothing Loki's said that Tony can't handle later, with a bottle of something strong and enough free time to burn something in his workshop to ashes. 

“Okay,” he says, and the word shakes despite his best attempts to keep it level. His next attempt comes out better. “I admit that one hurt. Well aimed, Loki.” Tony doesn't lift his face until he's sure it's showing what he wants it to: smug satisfaction, with no hint of pain. “So tell me,” he says, in the same cocky voice he can produce whether he's practically dying of internal injuries or in a board meeting or being emotionally dissected by a Norse god, “is your elaborate escape plan starting in five minutes, or ten?”

Loki actually looks taken aback at that, which Tony chalks up as a point to himself. It's a balm for his bruised pride, if nothing else. “What?” Loki asks, and that is what surprise sounds like coming from the god's mouth. Tony had wondered.

“I recognize this,” Tony says, sweeping a hand between them. “It's what you did to Natasha when you needed her off arguing with us instead of in the room with you—push, emotionally. Either that wounds somebody badly enough that they run off on their own, or they take the lashing out as confirmation that they were saying something important, and you lashed out to throw them off course. Either way, they leave right when you want them to. So. Five minutes, or ten?”

Loki laughs, and this time Tony reads nothing but amusement on the god's face. “You are clever, Tony Stark. I've rarely met the like of you before.” Once again, Tony gets empirical proof that fondness, in Loki's silken voice, sounds just as terrifying as anger. Still sounding fond, Loki continues, “I needn't tell you what will happen should you interfere, of course,” and grins like a demon. Right. Like Tony said: terrifying.

“I told you,” Tony says with a shrug, “I don't care about you escaping.” It's not like Tony alone will be able to do anything about it. Caging Loki is ultimately futile; Tony knows the worst he'll be able to do is press Loki into a corner, and Loki is never more dangerous or unpredictable than in the moments when he seems to have the fewest options. “Besides,” Tony says, “I get bored when you're locked up. Most supervillains can't keep up with me.” Let Loki take that as he will—it's the truth. 

Loki merely nods his head, and Tony takes that as his cue. He stands, pulls the plastic chair back to where he left it, and turns to look at Loki for the last time. “Well,” Tony says, “that was a good talk. We should do it again some time.” Not expecting any response, Tony turns and makes for the door.

But Loki, of course, thrills in doing what Tony isn't expecting. “Stark,” Loki says, and Tony pauses with one foot in the hall, tilting his head back to acknowledge that he's listening. “We will speak again.” Tony...honestly isn't sure whether that's supposed to be a threat or a promise. Maybe both?

“Looking forward to it,” Tony says, only half lying, and then he steps fully into the hall and walks away before Loki can surprise him any further. 

Right. Avoid Fury, get back to the lab, get thoroughly wasted, and get ready to do this again some time in the indeterminate future. Tony can do that.

Probably.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT 5/8/13: Guys, I think everyone should stop reading for a sec and go look at this wonderful thing elvoret made. http://obscyr.tumblr.com/post/43678828660/seven-devils-by-skoll-even-now-loki-says
> 
> And this one too, oh my god, I'm spoiled: http://obscyr.tumblr.com/post/50910504648/seven-devils-by-skoll-he-can-see-when-loki
> 
> Everyone spread the love, and check out the rest of elvoret's stuff too. I just. Incoherent happiness.


	2. Chapter 2

Tony wakes up the next—morning? It's probably morning—on the floor of his workshop. He's half-sitting against a cabinet full of tools, which isn't doing his neck any favors, and cradling his bottle of scotch like it's a teddy bear. He smells like scotch, ash, and grease, and he's pretty sure his shirt is stained beyond repair. 

All in all, a successful night, then.

“Jarvis?” Tony calls out, once he's put the scotch down and levered himself upright, “I didn't do any drunk welding last night, did I? Or drunk flying or anything?”

The AI chimes in, voice lowered nearly ten decibels so as not to exacerbate any hangover Tony might be having, “No, sir. The precautions you put in place went into effect as soon as your blood alcohol content reached .08, and your suit and tools were locked down for the remainder of the night. I believe you did attempt small repairs on your damaged repulsor, but they seemed to be done correctly.”

“Excellent,” Tony says, while making a note to check that repulsor. Sometimes his drunk fixes are less effective than he thinks they are, and sometimes they're actually ingenious things he wouldn't have thought of sober. Either way, they're worth looking at. “Any other news?”

“Yes,” Jarvis says, “SHIELD has put out a bulletin to alert officers to Loki Laufeyson's most recent escape.” The AI's voice is perfectly dry and polite.

Tony shakes his head, and finds himself nearly grinning despite himself. “Well, whaddya know. Are you shocked, Jarvis? I'm definitely shocked.”

“You didn't have anything to do with that, did you, Tony?” a voice asks from behind him, and Tony nearly has a heart attack—hey, he knows what those feel like, alright, not a hyperbole—as he spins around to look.

It's Cap behind him, of course, and Cap out of uniform, which means he's perfectly buttoned up with his shirt neatly tucked in and his pants completely uncreased. Tony sometimes idly wonders how much time Steve must spend ironing to get that look everyday. He almost built Steve a custom iron on his first birthday as part of the Avengers, the man's obsession with having perfectly pressed clothes is that obvious.

Steve crosses his arms over his chest, and Tony realizes Cap is wearing his disapproving face. Right. Talking. “Are you implying I helped Loki escape?” Tony asks, putting on his best over-the-top expression of betrayal. “Cap, I'm hurt. Hurt, and shocked, and possibly offended.” He drops the charade and says, “Seriously, though, Loki's smart enough to not need help. If there was an award for holding the all time record for from escaping from SHIELD facilities, Loki would be the supervillain who got it; and when he did I would be nowhere in his acceptance speech.” Tony gets derailed by his own line of thought and says, “Actually, how would that acceptance speech go? It's not like Loki could do the 'I thank God and the academy' approach. Do Norse gods even believe in gods beside themselves?” Now he's picturing Loki accepting an award and saying something along the lines of: I would like to thank myself, and of course myself, for making this possible. It's...scarily easy to picture.

“Focus, Tony,” Steve all but snaps, which Tony's incipient hangover headache does not appreciate.

“Already focused,” Tony says, in an effort to make Cap stop talking quite so loudly. “No, really, Steve. I'm right here with you, focused and everything.”

Steve just shakes his head, disapprovingly but with far more fondness than that gesture would have had when they first became a team. “Well, even if you didn't help Loki, Fury wants to see you.” Steve finally uncrosses his arms, and puts his hands into the pockets of his slacks. “He said you were the last one to see Loki before the escape.”

“That's completely possible,” Tony admits. “Why do I have to talk to Fury though? Doesn't he have cameras for this sort of thing? You can't tell me the King of Paranoia doesn't have a terrifying amount of recording equipment in every room.” Tony knows Fury does, of course—Jarvis hacks that recording equipment frequently. As far as Tony can tell, Fury catches about one in every three times that Tony uses Fury's electronic eyes and ears as his own. Tony's working on improving his chances, but it's still a work in progress.

Steve says, “Strangely enough, every camera in the room malfunctioned about a minute after you walked in there.” His tone is too pointedly bland, even for Captain America; Steve leaves the question implied.

“Okay, I've got two good reasons for why that clearly wasn't me,” Tony says. “First, because if I was tampering the cameras would have cut out before I was in the room so I didn't incriminate myself.” Really, sometimes people on his team seem to forget that Tony is a genius, not just someone extremely gifted with technology. As if he'd forget to completely cover his own tracks, were this his work. “And, second, because Bruce pretty much had Loki down when he described him during the invasion. That man's brain is a bag of angry cats at the best of times. If I'd offered to help, even just to cut the cameras, there are about equal chances that Loki would thank me for my efforts, or that he'd take it as an affront to his honor and attempt to tear one of my eyes out.” That's simplifying the Norse god, of course, but Steve clearly isn't asking for an explanation of convoluted Loki logic, and Tony is honestly too hungover and too tired right now to attempt it. One attempt to wrestle with the god's thought process in twenty-four hours is all Tony can take.

Steve nods, acknowledging both those points. “I believe you,” he says, and Tony, despite all the time he spends mocking Cap for being a soft touch, still feels a little warmed by that faith in him. Steve ruins it all a moment later when he says, “Fury will still want to see you, though.” Steve looks Tony up and down, clearly taking in the absolute wonder that is Tony Stark—or possibly just the sheer number of grease stains on Tony right now—and says, “Shower first, I think. If you agree to eat real food, I'll even delay Fury for half an hour while you eat breakfast.”

Steve's idea of real food tends to be green things, but Tony is grateful enough for the half hour's reprieve to not complain. Much. 

…

Tony does feel more human after his shower. Or, at least, he feels less grease stained, which tends to be other people's definition of more human when it comes to Tony Stark. His definition of human involves far more caffeine—and, with that in mind, he dresses quickly and heads down a floor from his rooms to the communal kitchen.

Bruce, bless his angry little soul, takes one look at Tony when he wanders into the kitchen and pushes a mug full of black coffee his way. Tony immediately picks up the mug and cradles it happily in his hands, breathing in the lovely coffee smell. “Steve said you'd be up and about,” Bruce says, and unlike the other Avengers he doesn't joke about Tony sleeping in his lab or Tony working for too long. This is why Bruce is Tony's favorite—because Bruce gets it, knows that sometimes one line of thought can take precedence over everything else in the world. 

Tony just nods at Bruce, trying to convey his complete approval of Bruce as a person in that gesture. He lifts the mug of coffee to his mouth, and then pauses to ask the essential question they've all learned. “Clint didn't brew this, right?” Hawkeye has many skills, including some really terrifying ones like perching in rafters for hours on end without apparently blinking, breathing or moving in any way, but the man cannot brew decent coffee for his life.

Bruce shakes his head. “I made it this morning,” Bruce says, and Tony has started drinking it before the sentence is even completely out of Bruce's mouth. He finishes off the mug quickly enough, and then turns to the counter to see if there's any more. 

Sitting out on the counter is some sort of sandwich on a plate, wrapped in plastic wrap. A sticky note on top reads “Real food, Tony” with Steve's artistic scribble of a signature at the bottom. Why Steve thinks he has to sign his post-it notes, Tony will never understand. The fact remains that Cap actually made him food, and remembered to post-it note it so that it stayed mostly safe from their ravenous team members; Tony needs to thank him later. Maybe he will build that custom iron after all.

He wanders back to the table with his sandwich and a second cup of coffee, and sits down opposite Bruce to eat it. Bruce seems to be intently reading the paper, but it's only a matter of time before he gets distracted by the crossword puzzle, Tony knows. “So,” Bruce says, as he turns a page, “did you hear that Loki escaped again last night?”

Tony can't help himself. “On a scale of one to rage monster—,” he starts, and Bruce cuts him off with a faint snort.

“Two. Maybe a two and a half.” Bruce looks at him over the top of the newspaper. “If the other guy showed up every time Loki escaped, you wouldn't have a tower any more.” That's probably true, and they both know it. Bruce goes back to looking at his paper. “Just because you want to run tests on the other guy—”

“Hey, hey, wait,” Tony says, putting his hands up, because accusing him of wanting to run tests is a little strong, “I'm not doing the evil scientist thing here, Banner. I just want to see what alloys stand up best against him, so I can refit the suit to be a little more Hulk proof.” The problem is, the big guy kind of likes Tony, probably because the Iron Man suit is the shiniest thing on any given battlefield. Things that Hulk likes tend to get patted, or hugged, or sometimes even get slapped in a companionable way—and all of those things are only marginally less damaging than an actual smash. If Tony has to rebuild the suit one more time because the Hulk got a little congratulation happy, Tony's seriously going to have a conniption. 

“Hulk proof?” Bruce repeats, and while Tony can't see his face over the paper he knows Bruce is doing that snippy little eyebrow thing he does when someone implies the Hulk is in any way containable. 

“Are we Hulk proofing again?” Barton says, wandering into the kitchen. Like everyone else on the Avengers except for maybe Bruce, Clint walks in almost completely silently, so Tony doesn't actually notice him there until he talks. One day Tony will actually keel over from surprise. Seriously, even Thor is weirdly light on his feet when he's sober and not shouting about things. “Because the last few attempts went badly for you, Stark. Next time I'm bringing popcorn.”

“It's cute how you think you're funny, Barton,” Tony says in return, keeping his voice sweet. 

“It's cute how you think I was joking,” Clint says, and reaches in to steal half of Tony's sandwich. Tony, from long months of experience, is prepared for this, and bats Clint's hand away.

“This sandwich is mine,” Tony says, “Cap's orders.” He wasn't feeling possessive of it before Clint wanted it, but he's self-aware enough to realize that he likes having things that Barton can't. 

“Why do you get a pre-made sandwich and not me?” Clint asks. “I'm the crippled one here.” He lifts his shoulder, shifting his cast-bound arm pointedly. He isn't actually crippled, of course—he was knocked off a rooftop and landed on his arm two balconies below, resulting in a clean break that will heal just fine—but everyone on the team knows how serious it is for an archer to damage his arms. That Clint's feeling up to making bad jokes about it means that he's feeling way better than he was when it first broke.

“Whine all you want,” Tony says. “I'm the one who needs to go talk to Fury at nine in the morning.”

“Is that because of Loki?” Bruce asks, and closes his paper to go for the crossword. 

Tony looks at the puzzle upside down and says, “Fifty two across is the Rhine.” Bruce rolls his eyes but fills it in, entirely too used to the Avengers periodically hijacking his crossword. “And, yes, it's about Loki. I had a little chat with the god last night, and Fury wants to know what we talked about.”

Clint doesn't stiffen at the mere sound of Loki's name anymore, though Tony can't tell whether that's a sign of emotional healing or of the creepy emotional repression he and Natasha do so well, but he does shoot Tony an incredulous look at that. “What did you talk about?” he asks.

“Whether Loki prefers boxers or briefs,” Tony says, the response immediate and as sincere as he can make it. “Actually, with all that leather, I thought he might be the commando sort of god. It's important to know these things about your enemy.” 

“Fine,” Clint says, “don't tell me, Stark.” He turns an unnecessarily self-satisfied smile on Tony and reminds him, “You know I'll find out eventually anyway.” Which is the truth: if Clint doesn't hear it directly from Fury, Natasha probably will, and Natasha tends to pool her information with Clint when that information isn't sensitive. Tony Stark talking to a god may be strange, but it's unlikely to be marked need-to-know only, and that means that Clint will hear about it.

Tony opens his mouth to retort—he's still not entirely certain what he's retorting with, but his mouth is good at filling those gaps for him—when Cap enters the kitchen, this time fully decked out in his spangles. “C'mon, Tony,” Steve says, “time to go.”

“What are you, my baby sitter?” Tony asks. “Does Fury expect me to get lost?”

“I've picked up a few things from Miss Potts,” Steve says, and crosses his arms again. That should be funny, because Steve is about the only person who still uses polite titles for Pepper—unless you count Thor drunkenly calling her the Magnificent Pepper Potts as a polite title, which Tony doesn't because it makes him laugh too hard—but mostly it kind of hurts. He hasn't really broken it to the Avengers yet that Pepper and he aren't together any more, because there's really no good time to say 'even Pepper has limits on how many times she can stand to watch me almost die;' they're newly enough not a thing that it still twinges to hear her mentioned so casually as a part of his life. Especially now that that is her whole part: Pepper Potts, Tony Stark's babysitter and sometime boss.

Tony finds a smile, though, and says, “I guess that's fair.” Tony's pretty sure Bruce catches the lie, since he looks up at Tony intently and frowns a little, but that's alright. Tony kind of likes having someone around who can tell when he's lying, and Bruce is already his favorite anyway. The wisdom of that choice of favorites is reaffirmed when Bruce doesn't push at Tony's lie the way Cap would, or look at him like he's internally editing some file on Tony the way Clint and Natasha tend to. He just looks back down at his crossword and lets it go for now; and this is why Bruce is the absolute best. 

“Just let me go suit up, Cap,” Tony says, “and then you can deliver me to Fury.” He turns to walk out of the kitchen and Cap follows him. “Should I wrap myself up like a present?” he asks, to fill in the silence. “I'm pretty sure I have a bow in my workshop somewhere—and I can always make one if that'll help—”

“Just go, Tony,” Steve says, his tone long-suffering, and Tony decides to actually obey for once.

…

So this is actually a first for Tony—he's never been on this side of one of SHIELD's interrogation rooms before. 

He rolls with it, of course, sitting down as calmly as he can and asking, “Is this an interrogation? Am I being interrogated?” The correct, Tony Stark thing to do is to throw as much suggestiveness into his voice as he can and say, “Kinky.”

The truth is, Tony doesn't like interrogation. For him the idea of it is still tangled up in that cave in Afghanistan; interrogation is just the politer cousin of torture, after all. If Tony broke then—not completely, not enough to make him actually build the missile, but enough that he gave up on his principled rejections and built something—then he has no illusions that he can't be broken again. That Fury couldn't break him again, if he really wanted to. 

Tony doesn't like being broken.

So he falls back on the image he projects, the cocky, headstrong Tony Stark who thinks that nothing can touch him, let alone break him. The man he was, once, and still mostly is with some small exceptions. “Can't I at least be interrogated by someone good-looking, though?” Tony asks, when Fury sits down across the table from him. Fury just raises his eyebrows and stares Tony down, and Tony pretends to reconsider his words. “No offense, of course,” he says, like that was what Fury was objecting to. “You're just not my type.”

“Stark,” Fury says, in the exact same tone that Tony's mother used to say his full name in. Strangely, it has almost the same effect now as it did then: it sends a weird shivery feeling through Tony, and has no outward effects on his behavior. If Maria Stark couldn't get Tony to fall in line, then Tony dares Fury to do better. “You know what you're here for.”

“Of course I do,” Tony admits, because there's putting on a charade and then there's playing dumb. It takes far more strenuous circumstances than this to make Tony do the latter. “I had a heart to heart with our resident god of chaos, and you want to know what it was about.” Then, because Tony enjoys seeing Fury's face when Tony acts like a brat, he says, “If you want to know, you're going to have to ask me nicely.”

Fury rolls his eye and says, “How about I don't have every missile on the helicarrier fired at you when you fly out of here, and we call it even.” Fury probably would, too. While on most days Tony might actually enjoy that—flying circles around missiles is practically his speciality by this point—today Tony's hungover. If one of the missiles manages to clip him, the sound of the explosion might actually make his headache escalate into a migraine; he'll skip that, thanks.

“Have you ever considered taking anger management classes?” Tony asks, very seriously. “I think they might be good for you.”

Fury just sits back in his chair, silently, watching Tony. The day when Fury figured out that the trick to dealing with Tony was out-waiting him was one of Tony's least favorite days ever. Tony can talk circles around almost any argument, can obfuscate with words or redirect a conversation completely; it's when there isn't a conversation to manipulate that Tony does poorly. Eventually he starts talking just to break the silence, or his boredom—and though that takes quite a while, Fury is like a fucking rock when he gets like this. It's usually just better to give in and talk.

So Tony does. “I had a few questions about Loki's motivations,” Tony says, leaning back in his own chair. “Loki was kind enough to answer.” Mostly. Probably. Tony's still working out the implications of those answers, but he is at least fairly certain he managed to hit the truth of the matter.

“Loki Laufeyson isn't known for kindness,” Fury points out.

While that's accurate, it's a mistake to say it—Fury's given Tony words to work with again. “You know something that bothers me?” Tony asks. “Why do we keep trying to give Loki a Western style name? It isn't like we always refer to Thor as Thor Odinson, and god knows Loki has enough daddy issues as it is. Why are we risking pissing off the god of mischief just so that we can have two names to call him by? His name is Loki.” 

“Stark,” Fury says, and while it isn't any more effective than it was the last time, Tony recognizes the threat in it. The sooner he talks, the sooner he can leave, and Fury's prepared to go right back to being a rock at him if he doesn't keep talking.

“Right,” Tony says, holding up his hands, “alright, talking. So. As Natasha or Clint have probably told you in excruciating detail, a lot of what I do in fights is notice patterns and use them. Not quite like Barton does, not over a whole battlefield, but on an individual basis. If I fight one enemy often enough I start noticing larger patterns to their actions. And while Loki's nowhere near as predictable as, say, Doom or the Mandarin, he definitely has patterns too. I decided to ask him about one.”

Tony pauses, but Fury's only reaction is to raise one eyebrow and stay silent. Right. Not exactly performing for an appreciative audience here. “Specifically,” Tony says, feeling a little irritated that he actually has to share this, “his death count.” Seriously, if SHIELD never put two and two together to make Loki's overly complex version of four, that's their problem. Tony worked hard to figure this out, and he's a genius—that's saying something. Tony doesn't like giving away his elegant, hard-earned conclusions for free. 

“And Loki answered your questions?” Fury asks. “He hasn't been very cooperative before.” Not very cooperative is apparently Fury's code for somehow managed to out-con Natasha. 

“He didn't answer as such,” Tony says, shrugging. “But the way he didn't answer was fairly informative.” Fury just looks at him, somehow managing to communicate skepticism without so much as twitching an eyebrow, which Tony thinks is actually a skill. He decides to lay out a little of what he's learned about Loki. “Loki's a god of mischief,” Tony points out, maybe a little redundantly, “and he gets bored when he has nothing to challenge him. He finds cleverness amusing, and he likes people who try to outthink him. I'm not entirely sure I actually did outthink him, but I got closer than most people manage.” Tony can't resist shooting Fury a smirk at that. “Say what you will about me, but you know I can be challenging.” 

“Alright,” Fury says, drily. “You can stop preening, Stark, before you trip over your own ego. Tell me what you learned.”

This is the part he's reluctant to tell. Tony hasn't quite worked his brain around the idea of someone who terrifies Loki of all people. If he tells Fury, either the other man is going to react the way he always does (namely: building bigger weapons than he thinks the other guy has, and everyone saw how well that worked last time) or disregard the threat because Loki's the source of the information. There is no good scenario there. What Tony really wants is time—time to figure things out himself, and go to Fury with something more concrete. He doesn't doubt that SHIELD will be brought into this eventually, but he'd prefer it not be right now.

Sometimes, the universe really likes Tony. Just as Tony's preparing a carefully edited rendition of the truth—one that tells Fury almost nothing while sounding like he's revealing pretty much everything—the door to the interrogation room is all but thrown open. Cap, standing in the open doorway, says, “Sorry, sir, but we've got Doombots sighted in Manhattan. I need Tony.”

Tony has never actually been grateful for one of Doom's attacks before. “Well,” Tony says, standing, “duty calls, Fury, you know how it is.” The best part is that Fury can't even contradict him, not when Tony is just playing the role that Fury wants him in.

“This isn't over, Stark,” Fury says, but he lets Tony step around the table and towards the door. 

“Of course,” Tony says, flippantly, and begins making multiple plans to avoid actually continuing this talk until he wants to. “Gotta fly,” he says, and the helmet of his suit lowers over his face, making his last words come out low and mechanical through the helmet's speakers. “Places to be, Doombots to kill.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few things, about this chapter:
> 
> First of all, Tony's motivations in this chapter make a lot more sense if you've read the first work in this series. While this is still technically readable without having read Seven Devils, it may be less believable.
> 
> And, secondly, I would like to admit in advance that I have no excuse for the (two second long mention of) nailpolish, except to say that it somehow became a thing of mine while I was writing it. Go with it.
> 
> Enjoy.

As an engineer and programmer himself, Tony really doesn't like Doombots.

Firstly, because they're stupid, and Tony doesn't build stupid things. Well, arguably he does, since he built Dum-E, but he doesn't build stupid things when he isn't drunk off his ass as a teenaged undergraduate student, so he thinks the condition still gets to apply. Secondly, because they're completely inelegant, both in form and in function, and there's really no excuse for that sort of sloppiness, not when Doom has had so many chances to perfect his designs.

Most importantly, though, Doombots don't learn. He's gone up against—what, it must be at least a hundred of these things already—and he's never seen any signs that they can improve themselves. Sure, maybe ever few models Doom adds on a new rocket launcher or gives them higher endurance, but there are no drastic changes in how the Doombots fight. After this many fights, any one of Tony's creations would have already learned the Avenger's strengths and weaknesses and started adapting to use those weaknesses against them and to avoid the strengths. The Doombots don't do any of that; they just cry out Doom's praises and attack exactly the same way they always have.

Maybe the moral of this is that it's a really good thing Tony is with the Avengers instead of against them, Tony thinks. “Jarvis,” he says, and rips yet another Doombot's head off of its neck, cutting the power to the machine and causing it to die a rapid mechanical death. “You'd be extremely terrifying if I was evil. Way more so than the Doombots.” Yet another one comes at him, shouting propaganda as it goes; Tony hits it in the face with a repulsor blast, which is much more satisfying than it should be, and then fires one of his smaller missiles at one of the major circuits while the Doombot is still off balance. It hits, frying the circuit and causing the Doombot to spit out its praises of Doom in slow motion, which succeeds in making the propaganda more ridiculous than it already was. Tony takes a moment to watch the thing as it slowly spins in circles, clearly unable to manage linear motion anymore. “Just so you know,” he tells Jarvis.

“Thank you, sir,” Jarvis says, deadpan. “I'll keep that in mind.”

“Iron Man,” Cap's voice comes over the comms, “stop playing with that Doombot and shut it down already.”

“I dunno, Cap,” Clint says, “I'm kind of enjoying the demented Doombot. It's a nice touch.” Considering Clint's only here for recon purposes, broken arm making it a little difficult to actually fire arrows, this battle's probably been a little dull for him so far. “The little squeaking sounds it makes are possibly my favorite part.”

Regretfully, Tony finishes shutting down the damaged Doombot and gets back into the air, surveying where in the fight he's most needed. “You know I live to amuse you, Hawkeye,” Tony says, idly, and then has to rapidly dodge out of the way as a missile comes at him. His sensors light up as the missile moves to come back at him, and Tony launches into evasive maneuvers, careening through mid-air to make sure the missile doesn't hit him or any of his teammates. “Just to let you all know,” he says over the comms, “the newest missiles are heat seeking.” He manages to direct the missile into a nearby building, where it proceeds to blow up an empty office. Idly reminding himself to pay for those repairs later, Tony turns back to find the Doombot that shot at him, hitting a few stray Doombots with repulsor shots as he goes.

Natasha's found the Doombot by the time he gets there—Tony's just in time to watch her rip its head off gracefully with her thighs and land neatly back on the ground. “You're terrifying,” Tony tells her, and shoots a Doombot that was coming up behind her as she neatly takes out another with a well-placed bullet.

“I'm taking that as a compliment,” she tells him, and reloads her gun with the same ease that most people tie their shoes.

“It was meant to be one,” Tony says.

“Feel my thunder, metal foes!” Thor booms out over the comms, sounding entirely too cheerful, and a few blocks away lightning crashes from the sky. Tony can practically hear the Doombots' circuits overloading from here.

“Less chatter on the comms, please,” Cap says, sounding like even he knows that's not really going to happen. Of all of them, Cap's the only one who's really a soldier as such. Tony kind of pities him—someone who values military precision, stuck with all of them? That's gotta be a nightmare.

“Hawkeye,” Tony calls out, gaining altitude so he has a wider range of fire, “do you have any idea how much longer this is going to go on for?” His arc reactor's still at about ninety percent capacity, but considering the thing is both protecting his heart and powering his suit, Tony would prefer not to have three more hours of this test his charge. He fires off yet another blast and watches another Doombot go down.

“Maybe half an hour, and then clean-up?” Hawkeye says, and Tony's learned to trust those sorts of judgment calls. “Another batch of them popped up fifteen minutes ago, but the Hulk went a little smack happy, so I don't think we have to handle them.”

Tony watches Cap's shield arc around a street corner, neatly decapitate two Doombots in a bounce, and go spinning back around the corner to wherever Cap is. Tony really appreciates having Steve on his team, he does, but it bothers the scientist in him when the shield breaks physics. Physics is actually a thing, despite what over half his team seems to think. 

The continuous stream of repulsor blasts Tony's been throwing out—he doesn't even really need to think about aiming any more, he's so practiced at this now—pauses briefly as a Doombot tries the missile trick again. Tony waits long enough for the missile to catch onto his heat signature and then dives through a group of Doombots gathered together. The sound of them exploding behind him is kind of gratifying. 

“I can do half an hour,” Tony says, when he's back up off of street level again.

“Iron Man!” Thor calls over the comms, clearly having caught sight of Tony. “Come and join me in glorious battle, my friend!” Tony enjoys how Thor sounds during battles, he really does. 

“Why the hell not?” Tony asks, and has Jarvis direct him towards the god of thunder. “Coming your way, Thor,” Tony says, and Thor laughs as Tony launches into battle beside him.

Tony may not particularly like Doombots, but he seriously loves his team. They make him look sane, sometimes, and the rest of the time they fight next to him. Tony pretty much couldn't ask for more.

Yeah. He can do half an hour.

…

Then the first thing Steve says to him after the fight—well, besides “good job today, Iron Man” and “next time spend a little less time playing with your enemies and more time finishing them off,” both of which are comments Tony's heard before—is, “Fury's going to want to finish that conversation.” 

Tony, probably futilely, looks around for another Doombot to kill. “I was thinking of staying and doing a little clean-up,” Tony says. He could so have done more than half an hour, if he'd thought Fury would pounce on him immediately afterward.

Cap gives him an incredulous look. “You never do clean-up, Iron Man. I'm not sure you actually know what it is.”

Tony frowns, not that Steve can see the expression through the helmet, and says, “Hey, I'm the one who finances most of the major repairs that need doing after our battles, and that's not exactly cheap. I mean, it's not expensive enough that I really miss the money, I am a billionaire after all—but still. Checks written in my name go out after almost every battle. Philanthropist, remember?”

Steve looks at him like Tony's proved his point. “I'm not saying that that isn't appreciated, Tony,” Steve says, “because it is. That said, sending checks is very different from doing the actual clean-up.” He gestures behind him, to where Thor is lifting up a large metal beam that was previously blocking the road. “That's what clean-up looks like.”

Caught between doing menial chores for the next few hours and actually talking to Fury, Tony's in the middle of parsing his options when Jarvis speaks through the suit's speakers. “Sir,” Jarvis says, “the arc reactor is currently operating in a diminished capacity. Might I recommend getting out of the suit to prevent further drain?”

By this point, all of Tony's teammates know at least a little of why the arc reactor is so important, though only Bruce has gotten the full scientific explanation. Accordingly, Steve reacts to Jarvis' words by visibly changing his mind, expression softening. He claps one hand on the shoulder of Tony's suit. “Go ahead back to the tower and get out of the suit,” Steve says. “I'll tell Fury you can't make it back to the helicarrier today.”

“Thanks, Cap,” Tony says, and reaches out to grip Steve's upper arm, squeezing gently before letting go. He steps back, waves at the few Avengers in his line of sight, and then engages his repulsors and takes to the air, rising above the battle and away.

Only when Tony is well up in the air, not only out of hearing range for the other Avengers but also out of the range where he can reasonably be expected to turn around and rejoin them for any reason, does he start laughing. “Diminished capacity, Jarvis, really?” Tony asks, looking at the displays which clearly state his arc reactor is still at eighty-five percent of its normal capacity, well within a healthy range.

Voice perfectly correct as always, Jarvis says, “Fifteen percent capacity below full is diminished, sir. You know how seriously I take your health.”

Tony isn't sure if he's impressed with Jarvis, or impressed with himself. “Damn,” Tony says, “I knew the last set of upgrades I did on you was good. I didn't realize they gave you the ability to be sneaky.” Unless Jarvis did that by himself. Sometimes building an AI with the ability to adapt itself to new conditions can result in strange and interesting things—and Jarvis has had more new conditions to adapt to than even Tony was expecting when he coded that in.

Jarvis simply says, “As you say, sir. Shall I call in for lunch?”

Tony thinks about it, and says, “No. I think I'm going to go for a walk.”

…

Tony's logic on the whole walking thing goes like this:

Steve, for all that it might have taken Tony a while to realize this, is a genuinely good person, to the degree that Tony sometimes finds it frightening. As a side effect of this, Steve likes to believe that the people he surrounds himself with are also genuinely good people. That's not true, strictly speaking—for Thor and Bruce, yes, but Tony, Natasha and Clint all know themselves better than that. However, it's so honestly refreshing to have someone around who thinks Tony is even capable of being a good person, who truly thinks Natasha can redeem the deeds on her infamous ledger and that Clint's habit of being utterly ruthless when those he cares for are threatened is some sort of healthy protectiveness, that they've never quite bothered to correct Steve's misconception.

So, Steve may be fully prepared to accept Jarvis' rather ingenious misdirection as truth, because he thinks that Tony is a good enough person to value truthfulness over, say, not having to speak to Fury. Steve might even be willing to go to Fury and make Tony's excuses for him.

Fury, however, is absolutely not going to buy those excuses in the slightest.

Unlike Steve, Fury isn't a good person. Tony isn't saying he's a bad person, either—he of all people understands the many gradations of grey that exist between the cardinal 'good' and 'bad,' and understands that lacking Steve's sort of goodness doesn't make you inherently terrible. Fury, like Tony, exists in one of the lower shades of grey. In the abstract sense, this means that Fury is fully capable of manipulating, lying and generally using the people around him when doing so benefits him. In the practical sense, it means that Fury's default assumption is that ninety percent of what Tony says is bullshit—which, really, it's more like sixty percent. Maybe seventy—and so will assume that Steve's earnestly delivered concern for Tony's health is only more of the same.

Ergo, Fury is probably going to have Tony tracked down by SHIELD agents and brought back to the helicarrier to continue their talk; it wouldn't be the first time. Cap's intercession is probably going to buy Tony an hour at most, if even that.

So: walking. As everyone who knows Tony even a little knows, Tony likes speed. If he has to get somewhere, usually he flies—either in the suit or in his private jet. If he has to stay on the ground, he tends to prefer cars whose top speeds are almost fast enough to feel like he's flying. Compared to those means of transportation, walking always seem inefficient and very nearly glacial, and Tony tends to be extremely vocal about his distaste for it whenever he's forced into walking somewhere.

Logically, then, the last place Fury will check for him is a place meant for walking.

This is how Tony finds himself walking through Central Park, dressed in a sweatshirt and jeans rather than his usual suits, in the middle of winter. Yeah. His life is a strange place sometimes.

Fortunately, what with it being the middle of winter, there are fewer people out walking than there would normally be. Mostly, the people that are walking are either athletes, focused enough on the exercise that they're disregarding little things like the weather and the billionaire walking past them, or couples, mostly off in their own little worlds. Tony's all in favor of obliviousness, today. As soon news hits the internet that the Tony Stark is out in Central Park, he's going to have to find a new hiding place.

So here he is, trying to appreciate the scenery or whatever it is that tourists normally do in Central Park. Tony isn't usually a big tree sort of guy—not that he has anything against the environment, he is the leading name in clean energy and he's in the top three of clean business practices—he just doesn't find trees that interesting to look at. Especially leafless trees in the middle of winter. He kind of wishes he'd thought to bring a tablet to work on, or at least his cellphone, but he knows that would make him easier to find if Fury's really motivated.

In the middle of Tony's attempt to contemplate leafless trees, a hand comes to rest on Tony's arm. Tony half-turns, expecting some sort of insistent fan who wants his autograph—not unusual in general, and even more common since the whole saving-New-York-from-aliens thing. 

Instead he finds himself face to face with none other than Loki, who uses the movement to slip his arm through Tony's. “Stark,” Loki says, and smiles completely without malice (see also: completely falsely.) “I did say we would speak again.”

Tony considers, briefly, attempting to run. He knows precisely how long it will take for the Iron Man suit to reach him here—namely, too long—so fighting is out of the picture, but Tony could at least try making a run for it. He shifts his arm, just slightly, to check Loki's grip on it, and finds what he expected: for all that Loki's grip on him looks like nothing more than an affectionate gesture, that hold will become tighter than a vise if Tony tries to pull out of it. Tony doesn't like his chances against the strength of a Norse god; Loki might look like a strong breeze could knock him over, but Tony knows better than to trust that. Loki effectively has him trapped.

On the other hand, Tony has to consider the small fact that Loki's deliberately making them appear to be a couple, which is pretty nonthreatening as far as disguises go. If Loki wanted Tony injured, he'd probably have whisked Tony away with magic as soon as he touched him; but here Loki is, making every effort to appear peaceful, with a number of witnesses in the area. This probably is just going to be a talk, then. Or at least Tony hopes it's just going to be a talk.

Loki leans down slightly, pressing his lips close to the shell of Tony's ear, and says, “Relax, Stark. You'll call attention to us if you continue to look so displeased.” He's right, of course—nobody looks too hard at a happy couple, but people tend to rubberneck when there's signs of fighting. It's in human nature to be drawn to conflict, after all.

Tony makes a concerted effort to relax, letting himself lessen the space between his body and Loki's until Loki's shoulder brushes up against his every time Tony breathes. “Better?” Tony asks, and summons up an appropriate smile. 

“Much,” Loki confirms, and nudges Tony's arm with his to indicate that they should walk. Tony sets the pace, moving more slowly than he was before; he's got something to focus on other than the trees now. “Were you truly so surprised to see me, Stark?” Loki asks, as they walk.

The answer to that is yes, of course, but Tony recognizes that it shouldn't be. It's in Loki's nature to be unexpected. “Only to see you this soon,” Tony concedes, and then grins and continues, “and wearing those clothes.” 

“Don't be a fool,” Loki says, raising one eyebrow at him. “The clothes I prefer would not be particularly inconspicuous here. Or did you expect me to simply abandon subtlety altogether, solely to comfort myself in an area as petty as clothing?” 

What actually surprised Tony was how close Loki managed to come to his normal clothes while making a concession to Earth fashions. Admittedly, the Norse god is wearing jeans, but considering the jeans are nearly as skin-tight as his usual leather pants, the effect is much the same. He's also wearing a shirt the exact same color of green as his usual fare, and a black leather jacket lined with green fabric overtop. The only thing missing from the outfit is the gold Loki usually wears—but, to Tony's great amusement, the hand laced around Tony's arm has gold-painted fingernails. Loki looks far more human than he usually does, true, but he also looks completely like himself. It's odd, is all.

Explaining that to the Norse god seems like too much effort, though, so Tony merely waves his free hand through the air dismissively. “It was a momentary bout of stupidity,” he says, looking up at Loki's eyes. “Never mind.”

A faint frown crosses Loki's lips—the god is both aware that Tony isn't telling the whole truth, and letting Tony see that awareness—before it fades a moment later. “Very well,” Loki says, and it doesn't escape Tony's notice that Loki's being unusually polite. Actually, scratch that, those words probably aren't strong enough. Loki's being polite, at all, and that alone is wildly unusual. Tony's never seen Loki use politeness in anything other than a mocking context; this doesn't feel mocking. So, either Loki has some use for Tony that he feels justifies genuine politeness, or he wants Tony to think that Tony is of use to him; puzzling it out beyond that isn't possible, not without more evidence.

And, as Tony's learned, the only way to get that evidence is to completely change up the script on Loki and see how the god reacts. “So,” he says, leaning in close, “out of curiosity, what was it that SHIELD had that you wanted so badly?”

That isn't nearly enough to throw Loki off guard, but it is enough to make the god mildly curious, if the way Loki's eyebrow raises is anything to go on. “I wanted nothing,” Loki says. “You refer to my recent capture and escape, I presume?” It's Tony's turn to raise an eyebrow now—what the hell else would he be referring to? Loki catches the look, and doesn't actually attempt to kill Tony brutally or anything of that nature, which is probably good. Tony isn't so good at restraining his opinions, even around potentially homicidal gods. “There was nothing at SHIELD that I sought for myself,” Loki says, simply.

“Then why let yourself be captured at all?” Tony asks. “You can't honestly be telling me your need to terrorize tourists was so urgent that it was worth drawing our attention and getting yourself caught. I mean, I get disliking tourists, I really do, but those attacks of yours seem awfully unnecessary unless you actually had some purpose behind it. If that wasn't stealing from SHIELD, what was it? Just reminding SHIELD that they can't actually hold you?” That seems like quite a bit of trouble to go to for a reminder of something that hasn't been forgotten. Just the fact that Loki is up and wandering around on a regular basis is makes that fact a little hard to forget. Pulling stunts like this, being visible in public and disappearing before he's caught, is almost as good of a reminder as physically escaping from SHIELD custody. Tony knows Fury routinely finds it—infuriating, hah, he needs to stop being amused by that.

Loki just looks down at him and says, flatly, “You seem fond of the sound of your own voice, Stark.”

Tony just grins, because no shit he talks a lot, as though he's never heard that before. “Is that your way of telling me to shut up?” he asks. It's better to be direct with Tony, generally speaking, but Tony's still working out the ins and outs of the more formal English Asgardians seem to prefer.

“If I wanted you silenced,” Loki says, “you would be.”

Tony doesn't think before he speaks, saying, “I'm not sure even you could manage that, but good luck trying.” Tony has to admit that that's a problem of his, the whole mouth operating independently of his mind thing. In his defense, though, it doesn't usually have him picking fights with gods in Central Park.

In response, Loki just raises his free arm to rest at the base of Tony's neck: a lover's touch, not a visible threat. For a moment, his hand simply rests there, just above the top of Tony's sweatshirt, touch cold against the skin of his neck—far colder, in fact, than the winter weather alone could explain. Then, softly, so softly that Tony can barely feel it through his sweatshirt, Loki's hand strokes down from his collarbone to his chest. To anyone else looking, it would seem like Loki was resting his hand over Tony's heart. Tony, though, can't miss the meaning of Loki's hand coming to a stop over the arc reactor.

He has to fight back a shiver at that—his memories of people touching the arc reactor aren't exactly positive ones, surprise surprise—and tries not to let fear show on his face. Showing Loki fear is like...like bleeding on a shark, and Tony can't show weaknesses now. 

“Before you misunderstand me,” Loki all but purrs into Tony's ear, hand making slow circles over the arc reactor, “I am no friend of yours, Tony Stark. Do not think to address me as such. I will not always be inclined to let you off so lightly.” With that, his hand drops away, and Tony can almost breathe again. “There,” Loki says, and smiles at him, “was that so difficult?”

The thing Loki wasn't counting on was that this is Tony Stark: Tony doesn't react to fear like most people. Actually, Tony's reaction to fear is pretty much the same as his reaction to anything else. “Hey, honey, don't be like that,” Tony says, not quite flirting but not quite doing anything else. “You'd get bored if I never pushed you.”

There's a split second where Tony thinks Loki is going to make good on his threat. Then that second is over, and Loki is laughing. The sound of it isn't necessarily happy, but there is something bright and clear to it—Tony wonders if, possibly, just possibly, he is hearing the way that the god truly laughs. It makes Tony smile involuntarily, which is...not good. “I haven't decided yet,” Loki says, when his laughter has stopped, “whether you are truly as brave as you seem to be, or if you merely place such small value on your own life.”

It's a question Tony gets asked frequently, and he's never had a good answer for it. He isn't as gutsy as he acts, but he doesn't want to die either. He just lacks the rational fear of overstepping his own boundaries that every other human seems to have been born with. “Does it have to be either?” Tony asks, lightly, in lieu of a better answer. 

“Perhaps not,” Loki says, his head cocked slightly to the side as he looks at Tony. For a moment the god simply looks down at Tony, and Tony—he needs to figure out what it is about Loki's eyes that do this to him—gets caught up in looking back.

The moment breaks, sooner rather than later, by nature's intervention. The wind picks up, biting cold as winter winds often are in New York, and Tony leans in closer to Loki almost automatically. Loki catches the movement and shakes his head slightly, expression closed again to a meaningless smile. “I have no warmth to offer you, Stark.”

“I'd been meaning to ask about that,” Tony says, because he might as well, now that the god's brought it up.

“Are you ever without questions?” Loki asks. Now that they've gotten the threatening part of the talk over with, Loki seems almost calmer. There's no pointed emotion lurking behind the question this time, Tony's fairly sure.

That doesn't stop it from being a stupid question, though, and Tony can't hold back a snort. “Are you?” Tony retorts, his expression incredulous. “Come on, Loki, you know better than to ask that. Neither of us would be who we are if curiosity was something you could turn off.” Tony recognized that trait was one he shared with the god almost on their first meeting; Loki can't possibly have missed it, not all these months later.

Loki acknowledges the truth of that, head dipping into a faint nod. Then, voice gaining intensity, Loki says, “Tell me, Stark: what would you give, to have some of those questions answered?”

The question throws Tony, briefly, before his mind finds the loophole inherent there. “Answered, or answered honestly?” Tony asks, fairly certain he's not being offered the latter.

Loki's smile, nearly ever-present through this conversation, changes; suddenly it's smaller, with just the corners of Loki's lips turned upwards, but also more real. As with anything to do with Loki, that genuineness needs to be taken with a grain of salt, Tony knows. Still. “I'm offering honesty, Stark. The question is whether you trust me to be honest.”

He doesn't—can't—because Tony Stark is many things, but an idiot isn't one of them. He's also not enough of a fool to think that Loki even makes offers like that frequently. If he says no now, he's likely to never get this chance again. Besides, just the chance of actually getting honesty out of the god is worth taking that offer. The trick now is offering Loki something worth his honesty, but not so precious that Tony will regret the offer if it turns out Loki is lying.

“My honesty in return?” Tony offers, thinking out loud. 

Loki shakes his head. “No. The questions I have concerning you are curiosities only. I would like them answered, eventually,” and Tony doesn't miss Loki's eyes dropping to the arc reactor as he says that, “but at present the trade would be uneven.” Well. That gives him some idea of the scale Loki is offering honesty on, at least.

Tony wouldn't offer information on SHIELD or his teammates, even if Loki would take that offer. There's a long list of things he won't do for the god's honesty, which Tony himself might not have predicted five minutes ago. It's...reassuring, to realize that he's still capable of being a decent person, sometimes. 

This leaves him with almost no idea of what he can offer Loki. Fortunately, there's a good chance he doesn't need to come up with one, Tony realizes. “There's something you want from me,” Tony says. “I'd be the first to admit I'm an amazing conversationalist—,” Loki makes a small amused sound at this, and Tony finds himself smiling, “but, that said, there's no way you'd be talking to me if there wasn't something you wanted out of this. Tell me what it is, and I'll tell you if I think it's fair trade.”

Loki appears to consider that, and then, abruptly, brings them to a stop. He turns to face Tony, not releasing his grip on Tony's arm. “Honestly?” Loki asks, and his tone suggests that he's surprised at himself for offering that much. Tony nods, slowly, and Loki's gaze catches his. “I mean to use you, Stark, to begin a war.” Tony can't keep his face from showing his surprise at that, and Loki definitely notices it. The god doesn't comment on that surprise, though, only goes on to say, “Or possibly to end one, I suppose, depending on your perspective.”

“How?” Tony asks, his mind practically tripping over itself with how rapidly he's considering and discarding possibilities. He wants what he's wanted from the outset of this—to have Loki bare to him, mind and heart and soul, to understand the god—but war? That's asking a little much, from anyone.

“How can you be of use, or how do I mean to use you?” Loki doesn't wait for an answer. “I've already explained the first, in part. You are destructive by nature, Tony Stark, and skilled in that destruction. I have need of that.”

Tony feels himself stiffen. “If you want me to build you weapons—,” Tony starts, voice heated, because if there was an annotated list of Things that Tony Stark Will Not Do, that would just about be the first entry. He's done with putting weapons into anyone's hands but his own; he's not even willing to think about putting them into Loki's.

Loki holds his hand up to silence him. “Calm yourself, Stark,” he says. “I have no need of your weapons. I meant it when I said I will use your nature; I will need no more than that.”

The heat of Tony's anger drains away at that, and the suddenness with which that anger came and went leaves Tony feeling almost drained. “What the hell does that mean?” Tony says, and hears his voice come out oddly flat for the angry words.

Loki's wider, less genuine smile makes its return at that. “All things in time,” he says, sounding smug and completely uncaring again. This conversation is going to give Tony emotional whiplash if he isn't careful. “This is what I propose, Tony Stark: each of us will make a show of good faith, so that we both can trust this deal will be held.”

“And let me guess,” Tony says, already seeing where this is going, “your show of honesty was already made when you honestly gave me the terms of our bargain.” He probably should have expected that the god of lies wouldn't give away truth for free.

“The clever Tony Stark,” Loki says, his smile widening to show teeth. 

Tony closes his eyes, and wills himself to want this a little less. It's useless, of course. Tony's had Project Skadi sitting on his hard drive for months now, collecting every bit of information on Loki that he can get his hands on; he's tracked down footage of almost every single time Loki's ever been in battle and analyzed it; he's put enough alcohol into Thor to get the god of thunder drunk enough to talk about his brother several times over. Just because Loki's kind of an asshole doesn't mean that Tony doesn't want to understand why.

By the time he opens his eyes again, Tony's resigned himself to going along. What the hell, he's never had a very good instinct for self-preservation anyway. “And what would you accept as my show of good faith, Loki Silvertongue?” 

As ever, Loki just has to surprise him. “The staff I carried when we first met,” Loki says, “you remember what it looked like?” Tony would be a little hard-pressed to forget, truth be told; if it weren't for the arc reactor, that staff would have had him brainwashed and singing Loki's praises, just like Barton was. 

Loki doesn't wait for a response, or maybe he sees one on Tony's face. “I know the staff is in SHIELD's hands,” Loki says. “I know not where, unfortunately. They have some means of shielding it from my detection.” For the first time in this conversation, Loki releases Tony's arm, and comes to stand directly in front of him. “This will be your show of good faith, Stark: find that staff, and destroy it by your own hands.”

Tony...wasn't expecting that. He was expecting more along the lines of having to steal it for Loki. Still, considering he couldn't really condone doing that—look at what Loki got up to the last time he had it—and he can condone destroying the creepy thing, maybe it's better that that's what Loki asked for. “In return, I'll get your honesty?” Tony asks, to be sure.

“In return, our deal will be struck,” Loki says, which is not precisely the same thing. “Use of your nature for my honesty. Upon those terms, yes, you'll have truth from me.”

Tony has the strong feeling that he's getting in way over his head. Unfortunately, Tony has this bad habit of taking that as an excuse to just plunge in completely and see where the current takes him.

“Then the staff's as good as gone,” Tony says, letting his voice turn arrogant. 

Loki smiles at him, the smaller, more genuine smile this time, and nods. Then the god of lies takes a half-step backwards; by the middle of the step, Loki is gone entirely, with only a brief flash of green light to show he was ever there.

Tony lets himself stand there for the better part of a minute and consider what he's just gotten himself into—lets himself consider the possible consequences of his own actions, which are, to be perfectly honest, myriad. After exactly sixty seconds, Tony gives up on the attempt to be a mature adult and starts planning instead.

The staff isn't going to destroy itself, after all.


	4. Chapter 4

The essential first step to doing something as stupid as, say, singlehandedly breaking into SHIELD in order to destroy an alien deathstick of unknown properties is actually pretty simple, in Tony's opinion: make sure there's somebody willing to bail your ass out when everything inevitably falls apart.

By the time Tony gets back to Stark Tower after his little chat with Loki, the other Avengers have clearly been there for a while. Barton, Natasha and Bruce are all sprawled out on various chairs in the communal living area, watching what appears to be Mulan very intently on the television there. Well, Bruce isn't so much watching as having a post-Hulk doze in the general direction of the TV, but the same can't be said of Natasha and Clint. “Hey,” Tony says, “are you guys playing spot-the-historical-inaccuracies of Disney again?”

They both noticed he was there before he talked, of course—unlike the majority of his team, Tony is an engineer, not an ex-spy or ex-soldier or temporarily borrowed Asgardian warrior, and he doesn't walk completely soundlessly. Still, it's become a sort of common courtesy for the Avengers that those members who are actually trained as superspies pretend they can't hear Tony breathing from two rooms away, and Tony pretends he believes them. 

They are allowed to acknowledge him once he speaks, though, and Natasha does. “Sometimes watching Mulan is just watching Mulan,” she says, and arches her back in a catlike stretch that somehow ends with her feet in Barton's lap. It's probably years worth of conditioning that makes Clint automatically start massaging her feet once they're there; somehow it's easier to picture Natasha pulling a decade long Pavlov on Barton than it is to picture Clint doing something nice out of goodwill. “Did you go out somewhere?”

It's not actually a question—Tony is wearing a sweatshirt and his face is undoubtably red from the wind, it wouldn't exactly take Natasha's training to figure out that he was outside. No, what Natasha's question actually means is that she wants to know where Tony was, but likes him enough to give him a chance to answer rather than just using her many varying talents to get it out of him. From Natasha, that's practically a friendship bracelet and an offer to braid Tony's hair.

Still, just because Natasha's being nice about it doesn't mean Tony has to answer honestly. “I went for a walk,” Tony says, because the best way to lie to Natasha is to prevaricate with truth rather than to actually lie. He lets a slight touch of sullenness cross his expression, just for a moment, and then says, “Jarvis' suggestion. Apparently I can't be trusted to let my arc reactor recharge in peace if I'm within three floors distance of the Iron Man suit, who knew?” He thinks he struck the right balance between irritation and general Tony Stark arrogance for Natasha to buy that, but it's always hard to tell with her.

So Tony does the safe thing, which is give himself an excuse to get out of the room before Natasha can properly scrutinize him. “Actually, though, do you know where Thor is? Jarvis picked up something on the Doombots I think he could use the next time they pop up.” That is, technically, true; Tony thinks Thor could be using his lightning more effectively, given what he saw of Doom's latest circuitry updates. It has nothing to do with why he actually wants to see Thor, but it is true.

Natasha just raises one eyebrow at him, which could be anything from an indication that she totally isn't buying his lies to her picturing the Doombots in tutus. Seriously. Tony can't ever tell with her. 

Barton, though, lifts his head up from the couch and answers him. “He wandered off to the kitchen. Post-battle poptarts, I think.”

“Thanks,” Tony says, because he's all about positive reinforcement. Also all about getting away from Natasha's scrutiny while he's lying to her, but that's not the point. He throws Natasha and Clint a sloppy salute—not because he doesn't know how to do a proper one, he's spent entirely too much time around Rhodey for that, but just because it's in his personality to make every gesture at least a little mocking. “Enjoy Mulan.”

His strategic retreat to the kitchen doesn't take very long; Tony designed the layouts of this floor for convenience. It's pretty easy to confirm that Clint was right about Thor—the Norse god isn't exactly small, and Tony can see him sitting at one of the kitchen chairs well before he actually walks into the room. 

The blond god isn't actually eating poptarts when Tony walks in; instead he's holding Mjolnir up at about eye level, looking at the hammer for reasons Tony can't really discern. He's out of his armor, though, and wearing normal human clothes—jeans and a t-shirt tight enough that chances are Jane bought it for him, though Tony can hardly blame her. If he had a warrior god for a boyfriend, chances are he'd show him off too—anyway. Tony takes the lack of scale-mail and cape to mean that, whatever Thor's doing with Mjolnir, he won't mind an interruption.

He knocks on the doorframe before entering the kitchen anyway. The rare occasions where Tony has accidentally surprised distracted members of his team haven't exactly gone well for Tony. “Hey, Thor,” Tony says, leaning against the doorframe, “got a minute?”

Thor looks up, and a wide smile crosses his face. Not for the first time, Tony wonders how the same set of parents managed to raise Thor and Loki: Thor, who shows everything he feels on his face, and Loki, who shows nothing he doesn't want to. “Tony, my friend,” Thor says, and sets Mjolnir down on the table between them. “You are very welcome. Do you have need of me?”

Tony steps into the room, pulls out the chair opposite to Thor's, and sits down facing Thor. “Yeah,” he says, and contemplates how to go about this. Then, because it's Thor, who doesn't value subtlety, Tony just goes for it. “How would you feel about me asking for a favor?”

Thor's eyebrows draw together, confusion evident on his face, but thankfully doesn't reject Tony off the bat. “Ask.”

“I'm going to do something stupid,” Tony says. It's only the truth, after all. He never claimed otherwise.

“That sounds...unlike you, Stark,” Thor says.

“It's for your brother,” Tony says, because just going off of experience, that ought to be enough to have Thor at least a little convinced. He catches Thor's expression, and holds up a hand to stave whatever question is sure to be coming. “Before you ask me whether I'm being either threatened or controlled, the answer is no. Well. Mostly no. It isn't a conversation with Loki if there isn't a little threatening and subtle manipulation—but I'm acting of my own free will.”

“And what do you wish of me?” Thor asks. Clearly Thor's a little too used to getting sucked into Loki's schemes to agree easily. Tony fully and completely understands that hesitance; it's the sort of hesitating he would have done, if he was a little more emotionally healthy and a little less stupidly obsessed with a destructive god. It's a problem. He wishes he could say he was working on it.

“Nothing elaborate,” Tony says. “Nothing that will directly harm anyone. I just need you to back me up with Fury, when Fury hears what I've done.”

Thor looks, understandably, skeptical—but Tony clearly hit the right buttons when he said it was for Loki. “You are certain my brother's request will harm no one, Tony?”

Tony's not certain of any such thing, considering that Loki outright said there was some sort of war hinging on this, but he's hardly about to say that when it looks like Thor might go along with it. “This request doesn't involve harm to anything but inanimate objects,” Tony says instead. It's amazing how many implications people will ignore when you hide those implications behind the truth. “Besides, your part in it is completely harmless.”

“Very well,” Thor says, and looks like he's resigned himself to possibly regretting that decision. “I will support you if Director Fury lays charges against you.”

That's step one of this entire idiotic process covered, then. Tony stands, because as much as he'd like to sit around in his kitchen and hang out with Thor, he should probably get started on step two before Fury calls him back in to finish that talk. “Thanks, big guy,” he says, and claps Thor on the shoulder in passing, mind already half somewhere else.

“Tony,” Thor calls out, when Tony is halfway out of the room. Tony turns back around to look at Thor. For a moment, Thor just scrutinizes him, silently—maybe to make sure Tony really is acting of his own volition, like he said. Then Thor says, “Be careful, my friend.”

It's probably already too late for that, but Tony's hardly going to say so. “Thanks,” he says, instead, and then finishes walking out of the kitchen, fully aware that Thor watches him go.

…

The second step involves finding out where, exactly, the scepter's being kept. That part, at least, is easy.

What? Of course Tony's been subtly setting Jarvis loose on SHIELD's systems for months now. It's what he does, now; Jarvis goes where Tony goes, and Tony's got a knack for getting into places he isn't meant to. It's justified paranoia—if Tony had trusted Obadiah a little less, if he hadn't let respect for Obadiah's privacy get in the way of his usual snooping, he might have avoided Afghanistan altogether. He knows better, now, than to let a little thing like trust keep him from digging deep.

Much like the tesseract did, the scepter emits a unique gamma ray signature. It's significantly weaker, of course, an echo to the tesseract's shout, but it's definitely there. Courtesy of Bruce's work during Loki's invasion, Tony has the equation he needs to track down that signature. From there it's only too easy to hijack a few laboratories' sensors and seek out that emission, and then to overlay his findings with Jarvis' maps of SHIELD properties.

It takes about three hours, all told, for Jarvis to finish running the program Tony's whipped up. Tony spends that time locked into his lab, with the lights off, in the hopes of not being disturbed. It gives him a chance to add a new upgrade to his suit, as well, so overall it's time well spent.

“Sir,” Jarvis says, at just past the three hour mark, “I have the results you requested.”

Tony sits back in his chair, and then thinks better of it and stands. “Give me directions on the flight over,” Tony says, “and suit me up.”

…

SHIELD thinks Tony doesn't know about the vast majority of their many properties. Admittedly, when their main base is an enormous flying ship that can actually disappear, their other bases seem a little unimportant by contrast. Still, Tony isn't three years old, he doesn't get completely distracted by every shiny thing you wave in front of him—just because the helicarrier was paraded in front of him doesn't mean he didn't look deeper.

This particular SHIELD holding looks like nothing more than a shipping warehouse, one of the many in this area. It's fairly convincing, if you aren't looking at it too deeply; even when Tony knows exactly what he's looking at, it still looks just like a warehouse that's seen better days.

Tony lands as discretely as he can—which, in a giant metal suit that Tony admittedly designed for flash, isn't very discretely at all, but he tries. “Jarvis, mind knocking for me?” Tony asks, politely, and strolls up to one of the warehouse doors as if he belongs here. The security system at the door, which had been blinking red lights up to this point, emits a green light and a low beep; the door swings open automatically, and Tony steps inside. The entire thing takes maybe thirty seconds.

Inside, the warehouse is full of rows and rows of crates. Part of Tony, the curious part that's always driven him to think things like 'wouldn't that change in velocity be worth possibly maybe blowing up a little' or 'and that red button does what, exactly,' that part wants to take the chance to look around. Mostly, Tony tends to listen to that part.

Today, though, he ignores it and focuses on his goal. He's getting himself deep enough into something he doesn't really understand, he doesn't need any more unwanted surprises along the way. 

The crate holding Loki's scepter, as the displays inside the suit inform Tony, is directly in the middle of the warehouse, surrounded by other crates that look exactly the same. The locks on the crate are secure—physical locks and electrical security systems both keep the innocuous looking crate closed. That might be a problem if Tony wasn't, well, Tony Stark. As it is, it takes Jarvis maybe five minutes to shut down the program running the alarm system on the crate, and then it's quick work for Tony to burn through the metal holding the crate shut.

Tony opens the crate.

The strangest thing is how innocuous the scepter looks, resting at the bottom of the crate. It's in its smaller state, the staff retracted into the base. If it weren't for the faint blue glow at the top of the scepter, and the almost—it sounds a little like humming, actually, that starts up when the crate opens, Tony might mistake it for being completely harmless.

“Warn me if any readings spike,” Tony tells Jarvis, and reaches into the crate to pull the scepter out. It fits in his hand neatly, whatever metal it's made from resisting the force of the suit's grip admirably; the blue glow of it almost seems to brighten when Tony lifts it out. “Hello,” he says, turning it over in his hand to examine it fully. “Fancy seeing you again. Jarvis?”

“All sensor readings are normal, sir,” Jarvis says.

Tony makes a soft noise so Jarvis knows he heard, already distracted by the scepter in his hand. He got a chance to study it during the invasion, of course, but not as extensively as he might have liked. Considering this is going to be his last chance to make sense of the thing, Tony figures, he might as well make use of it. “Run a quick scan on this thing,” he instructs Jarvis. “Make sure it won't blow up if I destroy it.”

Come to that, actually—Loki said he should destroy it by hand. Tony's not sure the repulsors necessarily count as 'by his own hand', not if Loki was being literal. Plus, Tony hasn't forgotten the jolting impact of his own repulsor blast reflecting on him when he tried to shoot at the tesseract during the invasion. Then again, considering Tony's other options, if he doesn't use repulsors, are just to hit the thing very hard against the ground and hope for the best, it seems like it's going to be repulsors whether Tony likes it or not. 

“Scanning is complete,” Jarvis says. “The scepter contains a fraction of the same energy that was held within the tesseract, not enough to cause either a rebound of repulsor energy or an explosion.”

Safe to destroy, then. “Alright,” Tony says, and considers how best to do this. Probably the smartest idea would be to put it down on the ground, and fire a repulsor blast at it from outside the possible blast radius. That still runs the risk of blowing up Fury's warehouse of misfit toys, but at least it improves Tony's chances of getting out of here unscratched.

Still, though. Something in Tony—the scientist in him, probably—rails against the idea of just destroying this thing. Alright, yes, it might be a creepy alien deathstick; that said, though, with the tesseract safely locked away in Asgard, this is the closest Tony will ever get to being able to study the tesseract technology. Tony isn't Fury—he's smart enough to learn what he uses to do something worthwhile, rather than just trying to build really big guns. It just seems...wasteful, to destroy the scepter.

“Sir?” Jarvis says, and Tony starts slightly. He didn't realize he'd just spent, what, five minutes staring at the thing. 

“Sorry,” Tony says, “thoughts running away with me. Or maybe with each other? I never remember which one that is. Anyway. Did something come up?”

Jarvis pauses, which isn't something he's programmed to do. “Simply analyzing my scans, sir. Might I recommend destroying the scepter sooner rather than later?”

Tony frowns when Jarvis doesn't pull up relevant data on his displays to support that request. Jarvis is probably right, though, wherever he's getting this from. Loki was fairly clear that there's no deal if this scepter doesn't get destroyed, and just standing around staring at the thing isn't going to get it destroyed.

There's an area fairly clear of crates nearby, Tony noticed earlier; he walks over to it and sets the scepter down in the empty area. Immediately, the hand he was holding the scepter in feels empty, acutely so. Tony looks down at his fingers and flexes them, trying to get the sensation to stop. There's almost a phantom limb feeling going on there, like Tony's fingers are missing the scepter, and that's just weird.

“Right,” Tony says, getting all of a sudden why Jarvis wanted the thing destroyed. He steps back, gauging a safe place to fire his repulsors from, and then, when he's found it, takes an extra step backwards just to be careful. The repulsors in his palm whir into life, and Tony consciously makes the shot a little stronger than it would usually be.

He aims, carefully, and then takes his shot.

The sound of the impact—it's almost like a concussive wave, and Tony has no doubts that it would hurt his ears if there wasn't a layer of metal between him and the outside world. For a second, just a second, the scepter glows blue all over when the repulsor blast hits it, looking for all the world like the shield that went up around the tesseract. Then the repulsor shot is through, and Tony hears the scepter shatter.

It's as if the scepter screams. 

Tony knows that's impossible—or at least impossible within Tony's range of experience, which seems less and less comprehensive every day now—but there it is: the repulsor blast hits the scepter, breaking apart the metal like it was glass and sending cracks through the blue tip of the scepter, and Tony hears screaming, loud and close, like a thousand voices all rising up inside his skull. For a second the sensation dips into pain, tiny sharp hooks of it at the base of Tony's skull, and he flinches away from the feeling of it.

And then the moment is over, and the pain drops away, and the screaming stops. For the first time since he opened the crate, that strange humming sound in the air dissipates.

Tony stands stock still for a moment, looking down at the fragmented remains of the scepter. “Well,” he says, mostly to hear the sound of his own voice. “That was—fuck. That was terrifying.” For good measure, he shoots the scepter a second time; this time, there's no screaming. “Jarvis,” he says, and forces his voice to come out steadily, “good call there, buddy.”

“I try, sir,” Jarvis says. It's probably a bad sign that even Jarvis sounds like he's forcing himself into composure.

That, of course, is when the doors burst open, and armed SHIELD agents spill into the room in droves, each and every one of them pointing the business end of a gun at Tony.

Tony makes himself breathe in and out, deeply. When he speaks, bravado gives his voice the cockiness he needs. 

“This is not my best day ever,” Tony tells the room at large. Slowly, palms clearly visible at all times, Tony raises his arms above his head.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The morals of the story behind my two week long absence: 1. Always, always back up your data. And also 2. If you are a sleep-deprived science major attempting to study for a chemistry exam at two in the morning, do not for any reason leave your coffee directly next to your laptop.
> 
> That said, that sort of absence won't be happening again, barring me having yet another fit of stupid at two a.m. And, to reward you guys for your patience in dealing with said two-week absence, I'm posting the normal fifth chapter today, and the Loki's POV bonus chapter on this Wednesday.
> 
> Notes specific to this chapter: I used an Americanism in this chapter, and I'm not sure whether readers outside the US would be familiar with it. If you don't recognize the phrase 'drinking the Koolaid', take a brief wander over to this Wikipedia page. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_the_Kool-Aid 
> 
> Also, Clint can totally fly an airplane with one hand. Shh. Go with it.
> 
> Anyway, thank you all for your patience, and enjoy.

Tony gets his very own cell, this time. He would say he felt loved, but—yeah, no, that isn't actually funny. He just had an inanimate object try to fuck with his head, and now he's sitting in a SHIELD holding cell, stripped of his armor, with two guards staring him down from the doorway and more doing patrols outside. This was not exactly what he pictured doing with his evening.

“Is Fury even planning to come interrogate me?” Tony asks one of the guards. He's not really expecting an answer—so far neither of the two have shown they're capable of basic facial expressions, let alone actual communication—but there's no way he's sitting here silently like a good boy. “Or is this the part where I'm left in a cell to starve to death? Because I think my tailor might actually kill me if I lose weight, and I'm way more afraid of him than of you.”

The two guards stay stony faced and stand perfectly at attention. Tony might get more reaction from a brick wall. Still, he's Tony goddamn Stark. “You're right,” he tells the guard he's been staring down, as if the man spoke. “I guess for the sake of scientific accuracy I should say dying of dehydration would come first. Beginner mistake, my bad.”

Tony could keep this up all day, he really could, but that doesn't mean he wants to. He looks away from the unresponsive guard and straight at one of the concealed cameras he knows Fury has in this room. If he's remembering its location correctly from the last time he had Jarvis hack it, he should be looking into the dead center of the camera. “Come on, Fury,” Tony says. “If you're trying to psych me out, you should probably know that on the list of bizarre and frightening things that happened to me today, sitting in a warm dry cell doesn't even hit the top five. My morning started out with things shooting missiles at me, okay, and that's seeming mild compared to my afternoon. Don't even get me started on the last hour or so.”

So Tony's said his piece, and now all that's left is waiting for Fury to actually show up. Tony leans back on the bench he's sitting on and deliberately shifts his body language to show nothing but comfort. It's harder than it looks—these benches aren't exactly the most cushioned things ever—and Tony realizes that he should have given Loki more credit for making it seem so effortless. Still, though Tony may not actually be an ancient god of mischief and lies, he's not so bad a liar himself. Lying with his body is something Tony knows how to do.

It takes Fury maybe half an hour after that to make his appearance, and by that point one of Tony's legs has started getting numb. Despite that, he swings his legs over the bench to sit upright when Fury walks in, and smiles widely at Fury. “Hey there, soldier,” Tony says, tone more obnoxious than flirty.

“Cute, Stark,” Fury says. His face doesn't soften even the slightest, and he says Tony's name like he's picturing how many ways he could make Tony's dead body disappear forever. Maybe he is.

“This is the part where I start talking, isn't it?” Tony asks, because his self-preservation instinct may be deficient, but it isn't totally nonexistent. Fury just looks at him, unblinking. “Right. Well.” The truth is pretty obviously out, unless Tony wants 'working with the enemy' added on to 'destroying SHIELD property.' “Do you ever wake up in the morning and just really want to commit an act of vandalism?” Tony asks, because it might make Fury angry but it probably isn't enough to make him actively homicidal, and Tony needs the time Fury's anger will give him.

“A random act of vandalism,” Fury says, and really he might as well have just said 'bullshit.' It's what he's thinking, Tony knows, and it has fewer syllables. “That's what you're going with, Stark? You have a private chat with an insane Norse god yesterday, and today you destroy his scepter. How stupid do you think I am?”

“Look,” Tony says, “it's like this.” And then—oh.

Oh.

“Like what, Stark?” Fury asks, clearly unwilling to take any more crap from Tony, and Tony's sure he would find that alarming except that he's a bit busy dwelling on the fact that he's an idiot. Not just him—all of them—and it should have been so obvious—

So Tony gets to tell a truth after all, if a different one than he was expecting.

“During the invasion,” Tony says, rolling the new bit of knowledge around in his mind, “the staff wasn't just brainwashing the people Loki used it on. It was brainwashing Loki too.” Then, because that's probably enough truth to slip a small lie under the fence even with Fury, Tony says, “It's what our little chat the other day was about.” That, at least, should put him in the clear from having to finish up their previous talk—now all he has to do is survive this one.

Fury just snorts, loudly, and crosses his arms, but Tony isn't putting up with derision, not when he's right. “No, seriously,” he says, “this should be obvious if you listened to Loki's bullshit for more than two seconds. Freedom from freedom, ruling Earth as king—those aren't rational arguments, that's what it sounds like when someone's drinking the Kool-Aid. Loki's the god of lies, you honestly think he couldn't have come up with something better if he was acting of his own free will?” 

What Tony knows, but Fury doesn't, is that Loki never planned on succeeding. Still, Tony understands Loki—not as well as he'd like, maybe, but well enough to understand that the god values showmanship and elegance in his schemes. If the god was determined to lose in his invasion of Earth, it seems unlike him that he wouldn't put in that extra bit of effort to lose gracefully. Loki's more than smart enough to do so if he wanted to, and Tony's assuming he wanted to: ergo, the staff did have its hooks in him after all, and Tony's argument stands.

“So, what,” Fury asks, “you're saying Loki's a victim here? That he's innocent? Forgive me if I don't suddenly want to hold his hand and hear about his pain, Stark.” Fury's tone, quite clearly, indicates that he'll sooner believe the sky is green than that Loki is innocent.

Which is fortunate, because that's not what Tony's getting at, at all. “Please,” Tony says, “say that again, I'm about two seconds away from hysterically laughing. Loki's a crazy god who thinks of humans as ants and lies to everyone around him, habitually, just because he can. I'm not claiming he has morals, I'm not saying he's innocent. He still would've gone through invading Earth without the brainwashing—,” because Loki might have wanted his invasion to fail, might have kept his death count low, but that was only because there was somebody behind the scenes forcing him into it. If Loki had been left to his own devices for long enough, he probably would have invaded Earth anyway, out of boredom or arrogance; it was only because that choice was taken away from him that Loki sabotaged the whole thing. “I'm just saying,” Tony finishes, “that without the brainwashing, he would've done it better.”

Fury still looks skeptical. Tony couldn't care less, though—he's caught up in the same rush he always feels when he invents something new or solves something very complex. Considering that his release from this place is dependent on talking Fury into letting him go, though, Tony keeps talking. “I know what that thing can do,” Tony says. “It's like hooks in the back of your brain, Fury, like something else is pulling you around.” Tony knows exactly how close he came to not destroying the scepter after all, to just taking it with him instead. Maybe, at first, it would've actually been about studying the thing—but Tony remembers what that felt like. It would only have been a matter of time before the scepter was calling the shots, and not Tony. “I only held it for maybe ten minutes,” Tony says, “and it was already screwing with my thoughts. Loki was clutching that thing like a safety blanket for at least a week, and who knows how long before he came to Earth. By that point, I think even a Norse god would be pretty helpless against it.”

“So you destroyed it,” Fury says. His tone is flat—Tony's got no idea whether this explanation is working or not.

“It's a staff that takes over people's minds,” Tony says. “I think I'm calling its destruction a public service.” SHIELD should never have kept that scepter in the first place—the whole situation with the Tesseract was fairly good proof that SHIELD shouldn't get to play with dangerous toys. Maybe it wasn't meant to be kept, maybe the original order on the thing was to get rid of it; Tony knows now, better than most, just how hard it is to destroy something that actively fights its own destruction. Or maybe somebody at SHIELD thought they could handle it, and that's how the scepter found its way into that warehouse. Either way, they were wrong, and the scepter needed to be destroyed. Tony's come out of his show of faith feeling a lot less conflicted than he would have expected.

“I don't care if the staff was a mind control rod or a bone breaker or a goddamned death ray,” Fury says, staring Tony down with his one good eye, “that wasn't your call to make. The scepter was in SHIELD's custody. As a member of the Avengers—”

“I'm a civilian contractor who can, at any time, withdraw himself—and, oh, his funding—from the team?” Tony asks, pointedly. “Yes, I know. And I'm sure it was terrible of me to break your little deathstick, I'm going to regret it forever, but these are the facts: there's no court of law that would convict me for this. Less than a year ago, that scepter was one of the key factors behind the devastation of the island of Manhattan. If this goes to the public, it's going to beg the question of why it wasn't destroyed then. So, given that you can't prosecute me, and you can't afford to lose my resources, we've established that there's nothing you can really threaten me with. Can I go now?”

Fury just looks at Tony for a moment. “You forget, Stark,” Fury says, “that nothing here needs to happen legally, unless I say it does.” Which—right. King of the spies, moral grey, and all that. Fury could absolutely have Tony tortured and killed and find some way to make no one look too hard at where Tony went. He could probably even manage to have Stark Industries foot the bill for the Avengers afterward, as some sort of postmortem tribute to what Tony loved in life. 

Intimidation tactics only work if you let them, though. “If you want to play that way,” Tony says, leaning back on his bench, “I'll play. My way's neater, though.”

He watches Fury think that through. At this point, it isn't a question of whether Tony's right, they both know he is. No, the question now is whether Fury actually cares enough to deal with the messier way.

Today, at least, he clearly doesn't. Tony reads that off Fury's face and, for the first time in this conversation, finds himself breathing easy. Just because Tony turns fear into bravado and bravado into his usual arrogant confidence doesn't mean that he isn't still afraid, at the heart of it. His fear's just more useful than most people's. 

It wouldn't be Fury if Tony got the last word, though. “Your release paperwork will be approved in the morning,” Fury says, and smiles in a way that's more like baring his teeth. “Enjoy your night.”

That's how Tony winds up sleeping in a SHIELD holding cell, with Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum staring at him from the doorway, still standing at attention when his eyes slip closed. Strangely, it's not the worst place he's ever spent a night.

…

At some point that night, or maybe early the next morning, Fury calls a meeting of the Avengers, obviously sans Tony. Tony has no way of knowing this is the case, given that he's still a little locked up in his cell, but he knows it happens anyway. The rest of the Avengers are, now, the people who know Tony best in the entire world; since they started living together, they became not only teammates but also housemates, friends, and some kind of bizarre pseudo-family. If Fury wants outside opinions on Tony's behavior, it's only logical that he asks the Avengers about it.

Tony isn't worried, not really. He's got Thor on his side, and Bruce will back him up in front of Fury because that's just the sort of guy he is. Cap, too, probably, though Tony is expecting a lengthy talk with his team leader later. That only leaves Clint and Natasha as wildcards, and Tony's hoping that the two of them will throw their cards in with Tony when things come down to it. He might not be as close with Natasha and Clint as the rest of his teammates, but he thinks the three of them have bonded over being the morally ambiguous members of the team, and he knows that they at least respect him. 

So, the talk with the Avengers can only be a good thing for Tony. Probably. He hopes.

At the very least, the talk is enough to keep Fury from going back on his word; Tony gets let out of his cell the next morning, and Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum escort him to retrieve his armor. They even let him suit up for convenience's sake, which means Fury's back to trusting him at least enough that he doesn't think Tony will blow up his ship.

The rest of the Avengers are waiting for him in the landing bay of the Helicarrier, in front of the plane they generally use for aerial transport, with varying amounts of visible disapproval in their expressions. “Hey,” Tony says, waving a little awkwardly at them. He raises the front of the helmet—much as he might like the extra layer between him and the talk that's sure to come, he knows his teammates see his lifting the helmet as a sign of trust.

Steve already has his arms crossed, everything from his body language to his facial expression screaming out disapproval. It's strangely similar to the expression Tony's seen on parents escorting their children home from the principal's office, which—okay, he's done thinking about the parallels of this situation, he is not some guilty child. “You're on probation until further notice,” are Cap's first words to him, skipping right past any polite greetings. Damn, but Cap is pissed.

Tony knows better than to try his luck right now—he's been doing enough of that in the last few days. “Alright,” he concedes, as gracefully as he knows how. He looks around at the other Avengers. Barton and Natasha are pointedly blank right now, which is probably equivalent to Cap's outward disapproval, and Bruce just looks tired, which actually hits Tony harder than anything else. Thor looks a little thoughtful, though, and Tony's willing to consider that a good sign. “Look, about all this—”

“We'll talk later, Tony,” Steve says, which, okay, ouch. Steve almost never interrupts when someone else is talking. He's just not an interruption sort of guy.

“Right,” Tony says, slowly. “So I should probably shut up and get on the plane now, am I right? Or will Fury actually let me fly off this thing in the suit without making me target practice?”

“I'd go with the plane,” Bruce says.

“Oh, I don't know,” Clint says, “right now seeing you try the other route could be pretty funny.”

Natasha just raises an eyebrow at him. 

“Well, as cathartic as it might be for you to see Fury hitting me with missiles, strangely enough I'm feeling the urge to get on the plane,” Tony says. “I know, self-preservation is a stunning new look on me, wherever did I get it from—”

“Tony,” Steve says, saying his name with enough emphasis that it practically loses a syllable, and it doesn't have that many to lose in the first place.

“Getting on the plane now,” Tony says, and does so.

…

The one upside to the plane ride of absolute awkwardness is that Thor sits down on one side of Tony and Bruce takes the other, leaving Natasha and Steve on the other side of the plane, and Barton off actually flying the plane. This does nothing to stop Steve from looking at Tony like he's a puppy who just peed on the rug, or Natasha from doing her eerie unblinking stare at him, but it does keep Steve from lecturing him and Natasha from doing him physical harm. So that's a plus.

“Tony,” Thor says to him, just when Tony has resigned himself to sitting in uncomfortable silence. The god of lightning says it quietly, which given the people sitting in this plane doesn't actually make it private, but at least means that for politeness' sake no one will interrupt.

“Yeah?” Tony asks, and hopes this isn't going to lead into a lecture. He's got the strange feeling that he's got a few of those coming up in the near future.

“Director Fury informed us of the nature of your service to my brother.”

Tony winces, just a little, and says, “Can we not say service? Service is such a loaded word.” 

“Your favor for my brother, then,” Thor says, which...well, it isn't much better, but Tony'll take it. 

“Thor, buddy,” Tony says, “not that I don't want to talk to you, because I do, but it's been a long couple of days and I think I have a limited grace period before everyone else I know in the world decides to remind me of my many faults. So. How about we cut to the point here, and you tell me what it is you're thinking. You know, streamlining the process.”

He's lost Thor by the last, he knows, but then the blond god is used to Tony. Everyone on the Avengers is used to Tony. Somehow, and Tony isn't entirely certain of how this is, they've all developed the exact same filter that anyone around him develops after a certain point, the one where they listen to maybe one of every three words Tony says and manage to pick out his meaning anyway. He asks Pepper how she does it fairly frequently, since he's pretty sure she's the one who invented the technique, but the only answers he's gotten are rolling eyes and pointed eyebrow lifting. Regardless, it works.

So Thor says, skipping over the vast majority of Tony's babble, “I wished to thank you, my friend.” Which...okay, Tony may be a genius and a bit of a futurist, but he didn't see that one coming. In Tony's experience, people don't thank other people for doing favors for morally ambiguous—let alone downright amoral—gods. “I hadn't even considered that the scepter might be influencing my brother's mind.” Thor's tone is riddled with little landmines of guilt, Tony knows; the god isn't going to forgive himself anytime soon for not reaching Tony's conclusions. “I was more prepared to think my brother mad than to allow him the benefit of my doubt. It was unworthy of me. For seeing what I could not—doing what I could not—I give you my thanks, Tony Stark. I owe you a debt.”

Tony tries to figure out all the things that are wrong with that, and goes with picking his favorites first. “You don't owe me anything,” he says, for starters, because if anyone was going to owe him in this equation it would be Loki, and they've already settled the matter of the debt in advance. “Plus, look, the staff might have been screwing with Loki, but I still wouldn't be inviting the guy back to family Christmas just yet—,” Tony looks at Thor, registers his expression (equal parts confusion at Tony's word choice, and what looks like the start of a protest for his brother's honor), and stops. “Right,” Tony says, instead. “You're welcome. Any time.” He sincerely hopes no one ever takes him up on that offer.

“I will not forget this,” Thor says, and claps Tony hard on the shoulder, hard enough that the suit rings dully from the impact.

And, well. Tony doesn't think anyone else in this plane will be forgetting this little experience any time soon either, but Thor's about the only one who'll remember it positively.

Sometimes, the little things count. Tony'll take what he can get, right now.

…

The things—well, okay, thing really—that Tony expects to find when he gets back to the Tower is, to put it simply, Loki. Not when they land the plane, of course, he expects Loki to be more subtle than that, but he expects the god to show up eventually. When he breaks away from the others to get out of the suit, he fully expects Loki to pop up, look smug at him for a while, and somewhere in the middle tell Tony where they go from here. 

Loki doesn't show up when Tony's alone, though, not the first time Tony gets time to himself, or the time after that, or the next. In fact, he just keeps right on not showing up.

What Tony does find, when he gets back to the tower: A pile of paperwork, all waiting for his signature, albeit a much smaller pile than he used to be handed when he was CEO, with a disapproving Pepper standing over it. (“Seriously, Tony, CEO's don't do these sorts of things. You of all people should know that. Then again, your official position as CEO was to treat paperwork like the plague, so maybe that isn't the best example. Now sign the damn papers so I can go run your company.”) Cap, waiting for him once Pepper lets him go, who takes him aside and reminds him about responsibility, maturity, reliability (which don't work, as topics, except to make Tony snap back at him), and then, when that fails, about friendship, his friendship, which he thought mattered even a little to Tony (which makes Tony go quiet, abruptly, and then rings the guilty promise out of him that the next time he does something this crazy, he'll at least tell Steve in advance.) Bruce, who joins him in the lab and plays with Tony, letting equations and his slanting, lovely math do most of the talking for him (that, and pointed looks at Tony from the corners of his eyes, until Tony finds the word 'sorry' actually voluntarily leaving his lips and winces at himself.) 

And no Loki. When Pepper steals him, there's no sign of the god; when Cap lectures him, Tony waits for a flash of green at the corner of his eye and doesn't find one; when Bruce and he realize they've slept six hours in two days between the two of them and leave the lab to sleep, Tony looks to find him in the dark of the lab and there's no sign of him. It isn't like Loki to stay away like that, not when Tony's done something Loki wants—Loki should be here already, should be leading Tony through yet another labyrinthine conversation.

Tony isn't worried that Loki stays away. No, seriously, he's not. First, because Loki's kind of a crazy son of a bitch who knows his way around a spear, Tony knows he can take care of himself. And, secondly, because worrying about Loki would be a stupid, personally debilitating, juvenile, and, oh, did Tony mention stupid, thing to do. So he doesn't.

Chances are, though, that Loki's staying away for a reason. The longer Loki stays away, the more convoluted and possibly dangerous that reason probably is. Worst of all, though, is that Tony has no idea what the hell that reason could be. After all this, the bantering and the threatening and the destroying of alien artifacts, Tony's still barely any closer to making sense out of the crazy, amazing thing Loki calls his mind.

That, at least, is a reasonable thing to worry about.

…

A month goes by like that. 

Tony spends the entire month on probation from the Avengers, which means significantly less time spent in the suit and absolutely no more time spent in board meetings, much to Pepper's frustration. Counter to what his teammates might have expected—and Tony knows all about the betting pool they have on how long it will take him to snap from the inactivity, and exactly what psychotic thing he will do during his breakdown, oh ye of little faith—Tony doesn't actually get bored. Take away the suit, and Tony is still a genius billionaire playboy philanthropist, after all.

Most of the month, Tony spends in his lab, doing little things like designing brand new communications technology for his company, or revolutionizing the world's energy industry. Sometimes he wanders out of his lab, cleans up, and goes to benefits—sometimes he wanders out of his lab, cleans up, and goes to bars. Either way, when he goes out, he tends to bring someone back with him. Bruce's expression while giving his one night stands coffee the morning after just makes Tony's day. 

It's not as though he doesn't spend time with his teammates, just because he isn't going out in the field with them. Tony still does the crossword with Bruce in the mornings—or steals the crossword from Bruce, technicalities—and Bruce is still the only Avenger who gets to come into Tony's lab. He and Natasha bond by sparring, which really means he lets her repeatedly throw him into walls with her calves and she teaches him curses in Russian when he does particularly well. Sometimes he just sits around with Steve, idly toying with his tablet while Steve sketches or reads the newspaper or attempts to catch up on the seventy some years of cinema he missed. 

A few weeks in to the month, Barton finally gets his cast off, which leads to Tony throwing him a party in celebration. Somehow, this results in arrows shot into a perfect smiley face in the ceiling of the living room and Tony drunkenly attempting to teach Thor how to dance gangnam style. Tony considers this a success.

Later in the month, the Avengers spend New Years Eve together, getting spectacularly drunk—except for Steve, who cannot get drunk thanks to the serum, and Natasha, who has the alcohol tolerance of...of a...well, fuck, she outdrinks a Norse god, Tony's metaphors are a little lacking here. Of a thing with a very high alcohol tolerance, Tony remembers thinking, at one point, and remembers toasting Natasha for it. At midnight, when the ball drops, Tony smacks an obnoxiously loud kiss on Bruce's forehead, and gives Thor one a moment later for good measure.

Over all, it's a good month. One of the better ones Tony's ever had, to be honest.

Yet, still, there is no sign of Loki.

He's not worrying. He isn't. It's just too quiet.

…

“Too quiet,” Tony says to himself, and groans, as every one of his sensors blares out a furious high pitched alarm. “I really thought that, didn't I? Fuck. Brought this on myself.” Every reading says the same thing, and Tony isn't liking what it says anymore the eighth time he reads it than he did the first.

“Tony?” Steve calls down the stairs to his lab. “What's that racket?”

Tony gets up, moves to his lab door, and opens it. “Here,” he says, and drags Steve inside, “Jarvis, show him.” And then, while Jarvis is pulling up the video, Tony explains, “Ever since the invasion I've had a couple of sensors going, just as a precaution, because honestly almost nothing that's ever come through a wormhole to Earth has ever helped us much. Thor excluded they usually want to kill us and possibly destroy everything we hold dear, actually—”

“Tony,” Steve interrupts, which is good because Tony can recognize when he's babbling but he's less skilled at actually stopping himself. “Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?”

Tony turns and looks at the video, watching the blue-black tear in an otherwise clear sky over Manhattan. “If you think you're seeing a portal open between worlds, with something coming through,” Tony says, “then yes. You are seeing what you think you're seeing.” Tony watches the ship—singular, thank whatever it is in the universe that doesn't actively hate Tony today, and a lot smaller than the last ships that came through that way—and says, voicing something he wishes wasn't true, “The ship looks Chitauri, Cap.”

He can see the moment where Steve gears up for battle; every line in his face goes hard and determined. “Get the suit,” Steve says, and Tony has an almost eerie moment of déjà vu, “I'll get the others.”

“I'm off probation?” Tony asks, which is a stupid and redundant question considering that he's going whether Steve wants him to or not.

“Just get up in the air and tell us what we're dealing with,” Steve says, no nonsense, and then he's practically half way up the stairs before Tony sees him move.

“Yes, sir,” Tony says, grinning to himself, and suits up.


	6. Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here, as promised, is the bonus Loki POV mini-chapter. 
> 
> For those wondering: this is about the gentlest I have ever written Loki. This is partially because of where he's spending time, and partially due to circumstances to do with his plan that will be more fully explained in two-ish chapters. If his POV shows up again, he's unlikely to be quite this nice. If anyone wants to discuss particulars of Loki's characterization, I'd be happy to.
> 
> Also, keep in mind that Loki at this point knows far more about what's going on than Tony, or you, my dear readers. If anything seems unclear now, I'll clear it up in due time.
> 
> In any case, enjoy.

Loki has never been overly fond of Niflheim. Ironically enough—though it is only now he grasps the irony, of course, only after every painful revelation about his origins—he has always found the place too cold for comfort.

He travels there, now; he has incentives enough to put aside the weather. The situation in Midgard will develop better if Loki allows it to brew a while—and brew it will, he knows, with Tony Stark set loose upon Loki's errand. He has never before, and suspects he never will again, met a mortal with even half of Stark's clever, brutal efficacy.

The great hall of Niflheim rises up from the mist, almost entirely obscured even when he stands on its doorstep. He takes in the expanse of it and spares a genuine smile. Hel has done well for herself.

He does not knock at the doors of the hall, simply spends a little of his will and magic to see them open before him. There is nothing in this place that will harm him, and he need not stand upon manners here. Loki Silvertongue is no guest in this realm.

Hel, as he expected, sits upon her throne; she looks unsurprised when the doors to her throne room open themselves for him, allowing him entrance. “It has been some time since your presence last graced these halls,” Hel says, and stands from her throne. There are others about her—servants, perhaps, or merely residents of her realm—but she sends them away with a wave of her hand. Loki steps closer, close enough to see her properly. She looks well, which is more than Loki can say of himself.

This distance, unfortunately, also allows her to see him clearly; he can tell, by the frown that crosses her face, that she has done so. “I mislike the bruises under your eyes,” she says, and descends from her throne. He steps up to meet her, moving by instinct rather than conscious thought, and she meets him in the middle of their distance; at once her arms are around him. “Father.”

It takes some effort to relax under her touch, but at last Loki reminds himself that this is his daughter, born of his flesh, and no enemy. Then, at last, he can return the embrace—and his body takes up the lie for him, making the touch seem far more effortless than it feels. His body has a skill at that, at hiding his weaknesses when even his mind cannot. “Daughter,” he returns, and gives himself a long moment to appreciate the compactness of her body against his, the cold touch of her skin.

At last, though, she draws back to look at him. “The bruises, Father.” Her tone says she will brook no falsehood.

Loki finds he has some truth to speak, after all. “My sleep is troubled,” he says.

“Why?” Hel seems as though she truly does not know, but Loki is not so quick to believe that ignorance. It is unlike his daughter to keep her mind solely restricted to the affairs of her own realm.

“You, above all others, have felt the reason why,” Loki says, confident that he speaks the truth. His daughter has no small insight into death.

He sees he is correct, a moment later, in the twist of her expression; disgust dances across that half of her face which appears as living flesh. “You speak of the one who disrupts the balance,” she says. “The lover of death.” She shudders as she speaks the words, a small movement—Hel, as any who deals closely with death, knows the Lady Death too well to love her. 

“The mad titan,” Loki confirms. Even here, safe in his daughter's realm, he will not speak the name. If he calls attention to himself now, his gambit will fail; he cannot afford such a failure.

“Then you seek shelter?” It would not be the first time Hel had offered him sanctuary—Loki's life has been a long one, yes, but in all those long years he has never known much of peace.

“For a time, yes,” Loki accedes, bowing his head graciously—it is the least his daughter deserves. Though his fond memories of Angrboda are few, Loki does not regret their joining: that affair, for all its failings, gave him Hel. Basest sentiment though it might be, Loki would not do without his daughter for all the realms. Particularly not now, when she is all the family he has in the nine realms, and offers him safety. “Matters in Midgard are presently...delicate. They will proceed better unattended, at least for a little while.”

“Always plotting,” Hel says, her tone fond.

“God of mischief,” Loki returns, one eyebrow raised, and finds himself smiling also. 

“Come, then, Loki Troublemaker,” Hel says, and threads her arm through his just as she liked to do when she was a child. “Let us see about getting you fed.”

…

Clever, brutal efficacy indeed: Tony Stark is not a creature to be underestimated.

Loki laughs, a clear, delighted noise, when he feels the scepter fall, shrieking, out of existence. It echoes across the realms, clearly audible even from Midgard, not even a day after Loki has left the human realm. “Stark,” he says, and lifts a glass of his daughter's wine in a toast across the worlds. “You never fail to amuse me.” This is not something Loki can say of many creatures—in fact, in all of Loki's long life, he has still only found the one. If he isn't cautious, he'll find himself fond of the clever, cruel mortal.

Loki puts that thought aside as the absurdity it is, raises his goblet to his lips, and drinks deeply. The wine slides down his throat with a noticeable chill, leaving only a faint aftertaste on his tongue.

“That would be your plot, then, Father?” Hel asks, visibly amused herself.

“Perhaps,” Loki says, and schools his face to absolute opaqueness, letting none of his thoughts appear on his expression. Hel may be his daughter, but there are some details which even she need not be privy to.

“Oh, keep your secrets,” Hel says, entirely too used to Loki to feel offense. “But know this: if that was your plan, Father, it's not nearly your subtlest work. I wasn't looking for...whatever that was, and yet I felt it perfectly clearly from worlds away.”

Loki lets himself smile, a predatory expression, his teeth bared to the sky in challenge. “If I've any luck, daughter,” Loki says, “you aren't the only one.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, everybody. There are things I meant to say here, but this chapter is currently being brought to you by an author who's running a low grade fever and has a paper due and an exam this Friday (oh the joys of midterm week), so I have no recollection of what those things were. Additionally, this chapter may have some mistakes in it, due to the aforementioned fever and crazy busyness. If they're glaringly obvious errors, I'll come back and edit them out sometime next week.
> 
> So yeah, basically this author's note is just to say bear with me here, and I promise actual coherence and editing next week.
> 
> Enjoy.

"Sir," Jarvis says, "the Chitauri vessel has just come into visual range."

"I see it, Jarv," Tony says, and drops the power input to his repulsors, lowering his velocity. He comes to an almost full stop, hovering more than flying, and watches the ship's movements. There's no way in hell Tony's flying into this without at least some idea of what he's getting himself into. "I can only see one, Jarvis, can you confirm that?" In Tony's—admittedly limited, but still pertinent—experience, one Chitauri ship doesn't stay singular for very long.

"Yes, sir. My readings indicate a single Chitauri ship. I am not detecting any disguised heat sources."

"Right," Tony says, and amps up the repulsors again. "I'm going to circle around, get a feel for what's going on here. I want you giving me some idea of where he's going if he stays on this trajectory. And tell me if I'm circling in too close, will you? I'm a little out of practice with thrilling aerial heroics right now, no need to chance a firefight if he isn't provoking one."

"Understood," Jarvis says, and Tony grins a little inside his helmet, where no one can see him to judge him for it. Alright, alright, so there's a city-destroying alien ship over Manhattan, Tony completely understands that this isn't a good thing—but Tony gets to fly again. Tony always forgets just how much he likes being up in the air when he's on the ground, and who knows how much longer he would have been grounded if this threat hadn't popped up. So. Tony is willing to be conditionally happy about this situation, at least until it inevitably blows up in his face.

He flies quick, wide circles around the craft, puzzling out what the hell it's doing here. It's not one of the big ships, the ones Tony saw in—wherever the hell that wormhole went to, anyway—so probably it isn't acting as a troop carrier. It isn't one of the small two-man crafts Clint had so much fun bringing down during the invasion, either. This ship is mid-sized, maybe big enough to fit a dozen Chitauri, and in terms of design the exterior resembles the armor of those...fuck, what even were they, death turtles? If the Chitauri are going to repeatedly invade Earth, Tony's going to need to come up with better names for those, and fast.

Tony watches the movement of the ship for five, maybe ten minutes, before something sparks a thought. "Jarvis, hey, double check something for me? This is starting to look a lot like a search pattern to me." There are small variations from what Tony's used to, of course—the aerodynamics of human planes are different, so of course their flight patterns also differ slightly—but it's close enough to physically resemble the sweeping patterns of an aerial search. 

Jarvis takes about thirty seconds to analyze, and then comes back with, "You seem to be correct, sir."

"Don't sound so surprised, Jarvis, I'm always right," Tony says, because when he's busy thinking about something and his mouth keeps talking, arrogance is inevitably what comes out. It's perfunctory arrogance at best, though; there are more important things going on. "I could really use those trajectory projections now, for the record." He watches the ship—yeah, that's definitely a search pattern, now that he's noticed it it's kind of hard to miss. Low altitude, slow moving flight that sweeps across sections of land: it's probably the Chitauri equivalent of a textbook maneuver. "What are you looking for, you bastard?" Tony asks rhetorically, hoping his brain will spit out another connection.

"I can't answer that, sir," Jarvis says, "but I do have the projection you asked for." It flashes up on Tony's HUD, and so Tony notices the problem even as Jarvis is saying, "The ship is flying towards an area of extremely high civilian population density." Not that New York City has many areas with low civilian population density, but the population map overlaying Jarvis' projection is practically crammed with little white indicators of life, even compared to Manhattan's norms.

A low, whirring sound catches Tony briefly by surprise, until he manages to place it as Barton turning on the comm system of the jet during take-off. "Iron Man," Cap's says, over the background noise, "we just got the jet off the ground. What've you got for me?"

"One Chitauri ship, hand wrapped and delivered to one of the busiest areas of Manhattan," Tony says. "I think he's looking for something. On the plus side, he's looking slowly." The downside pretty much goes unsaid—Tony's pretty sure no one currently living in the city of New York needs an explanation of why the Chitauri plus Manhattan equals very bad things. Somehow he sincerely doubts this is some sort of intergalactic pizza run, no matter how innocent the Chitauri ship seems right now.

"So we can either let the ship keep flying without interference, or interfere," Steve says. "I don't like the first option."

"Funny," Tony says, "I was thinking the same." He runs a few calculations through his head, then says, "I think if I harry him, I can probably get the ship out over the water, maybe bring him down?"

"Try it," Steve says, the command crisp. "We'll be there in fifteen minutes to back you up."

"Right," Tony says, and silences the comms. Much as he loves his team, sometimes it's entirely too distracting to hear them during battle. "I guess it's time for daring aerial heroics after all."

Tony moves, firing one repulsor to change his orientation in space, and then engages both repulsors at full blast, shooting himself across the air. His angle isn't perfect—he comes a little closer to the ship than he means to—but it's good enough, sending him rocketing just past the nose of the ship: making himself a target. "Come on, come on," he says, and spins around mid-air to face the ship again, firing a weak repulsor blast at the side of the ship to catch the attention of whoever is piloting the thing. "Follow me, you bastard, come on."

Tony's suit is smaller than the ship, which gives him the advantage of maneuverability; he sees it when the ship starts to turn his way and quickly pushes himself higher, up and over the hull of the ship. When he's directly above the ship, he pulls his arms tight to his sides and cuts power to the repulsors, letting himself sink like a stone through the air. Gravity gives him a hand, and though the resistance of the air cuts his velocity a little, he still makes a satisfying, shuddering impact with the ship when he lands. There's no way in hell they haven't noticed him now. "Tag," he says, because why the hell not. "You're it."

Using the ship to brace himself, Tony launches back into the air, repulsors whirring into life to put him above the ship again. The ship is turning towards him again, but too slowly for Tony to be in any—

"Whoa," Tony says, as the ship does an improbably agile roll in midair and comes up facing him, "I didn't know you could do that." He's already moving, though, pushing the suit for speed, with Jarvis giving him a course to the water; the Chitauri ship follows. "Got you," he says, grinning, and twists through the air to avoid some sort of laser beam. 

The ship is fast, maybe fast enough to catch up with him if Tony gives it long enough; for now, he's got the full power of the arc reactor and momentum on his side, and he doesn't have far to go. "Jarvis," he says, evading another shot, "give me your best approximation of where the engine would be on a ship like that."

"I cannot guarantee accuracy—," Jarvis says, and Tony loses focus briefly as he dances around another shot, narrowly avoiding being hit directly in the back. The beam scrapes the edge of his ribs and one arm instead, and Tony hisses as the metal of the suit absorbs heat uncomfortably quickly; part of the chest plate is sheered off where the shot connects, and the wind blows it away. So, shit, that's definitely a confirmation on the ship being able to hurt Tony. Good to know. 

"That's why it's called a guess, Jarvis," Tony says, aware that his voice is thin and airy. Apparently a month of not nearly being killed every other day has accustomed Tony to the idea of his own mortality again. "Accuracy is less important than speed right now." The water's coming up quickly, and Tony estimates maybe two more minutes before he can try bringing the ship down. Tony's honestly never been more happy to see a body of water in his whole life.

"Iron Man—" Cap says, which, seriously, of all the times to override Tony silencing the comms, he picks right now?

"Not right now, Cap," Tony says, and then he's over the water and the ship is behind him and, "Now would be great, Jarvis!"

"Sir," Jarvis says, and a three dimensional image of the ship lights up on Tony's display, with one area indicated in red.

Tony can do red. "Come on," he says, and cuts power to the repulsors, changing the orientation of his body and angling the thrusters in his boots so that, briefly, he's almost lying down in mid-air—and then he powers the repulsors again and physics does its job, and Tony abruptly changes direction. The shift in his momentum is jarring, but it's also effective, shooting him back over the Chitauri ship before the ship has time to react. He takes a repulsor shot at the probably-the-engine area that Jarvis marked for him, throwing maybe a little more energy in than he usually would, knowing that this sort of flying is going to be absolutely terrible for accuracy—

The Chitauri ship explodes, a small burst of fire that means Tony hit the engine quickly followed by a large plume of fire and smoke, Tony's shot igniting something within the ship. "Got you," he says again, and feels himself grinning as the Chitauri ship falls out of the sky, circling downwards gracelessly towards the water. "Cap," he says, opening the comms again, "so sorry for the interruption, but it's rude to answer calls when you're entertaining guests."

"Iron Man," Steve says, tone flat and unimpressed.

And Tony is in a good enough mood that he gives Cap the answer he wants. "The Chitauri ship is down," he says, and hears Thor whoop in the background. "We'll be home in time for dinner, boys and girls."

"Good work, Iron Man." Steve even restricts himself from a 'no chatter on the comms' comment, which is how Tony knows he cares.

"Aw, shucks," Tony says, in his best imitation of Steve's voice, and he can practically hear Steve rolling his eyes from here.

"Sir," Jarvis says, pointedly, and his displays light up again. Which—

"Son of a bitch," Tony says, and pushes the suit into full flight again. "Cap, we've got a smaller ship that jettisoned from the original when I shot it down, and it's most of the way to land already." It's a quick thing, too, quicker than Tony remembers the Chitauri two-man ships being. Tony runs the math in his head and comes back with, “There's no way I can catch up if I don't go now. I can take this guy down solo—”

“Iron Man, we have no idea who's piloting that ship, or why,” Cap says, voice sharp. “For all we know you'll be flying directly into some sort of Chitauri ship. There's no point in attacking alone, we're only five minutes out from your position.”

It's not an unsound tactical decision. At least, it isn't until Tony's truly severe reluctance to let the Chitauri get anywhere near the people of Manhattan is taken into account; last time they pulled a staff that could control gods out of their collective asses, who knows what they're bringing now, even with just a two-man ship. When that little factor is considered, Cap's orders make absolutely no sense. “Cap—,” Tony says, with the full intention of conveying this thought in a mature and adult way.

"No, Iron Man,” Steve says. “Keep an eye on the ship, but don't engage alone. We're coming to you."  
…

With all due respect to Steve: fuck that.

"Jarvis, plot me a collision course," Tony says, because in his experience the best way to get a ship out of the air is to hit it with something, and if there's any chance of the Chitauri pilot surviving to be questioned then his repulsors and missiles and assorted other toys are out of the question. The suit, though, is perfectly usable as a blunt weapon, and Tony can pilot it accurately enough to keep the Chitauri in one piece.

"Sir," Jarvis starts, and Tony knows that tone.

"You've been spending too much time with Steve," he tells his AI, in all seriousness. "I never programmed that tone in."

"I am a learning AI," Jarvis says, as though Tony needs a reminder, and his voice is too proper to be smug, but only just. That said, though, Jarvis doesn't actually criticize Tony's decision to take independent action, just does as Tony asks, plotting the course. It'll take full power to the repulsors to catch up, but Tony hasn't stressed the arc reactor in over a month; he can go a little overboard now and not risk total heart failure. 

So Tony pushes because, hey, it's what he does, and he's good at it. Slowly, slowly, he gains on the Chitauri two-man ship.

"Brace for impact, Jarvis," Tony says, lightly, and overloads his boot thrusters. It's going to make getting out of here a bitch, considering there's every chance he just blew out his primary thrusters, but it gives him the extra boost he needs to hit the two-man ship headfirst, taking both it and himself down to the ground.

He hits the ground hard—which in a metal suit is not exactly the most comfortable thing ever, but Tony's used to it by now—and rolls a few times before he comes to a stop. "Well," he says, and pushes himself upright to survey the situation, "that was fun."

The Chitauri is still on the ground, one arm curled around what would be its ribcage if it was human. Apparently, some physical indicators of pain span not just the world but the universe; Tony learns new things everyday. Still, he doesn't let his guard down. He's learned first hand that the Chitauri are tougher than they look, and while that impact might have been debilitating for a human, for all he knows the Chitauri are completely different anatomically, and this is just faking.

He does, however, take a second to look at the Chitauri he brought down. He thought the Chitauri of the invasion looked weird, and yet they've got nothing on this one; the Chitauri has some sort of covering over both his eyes, and metal brackets his mouth and both sides of his face. Basically, nothing he's wearing looks conducive to the abilities to say, see something two inches in front of your face, or talk—Tony has to give him some credit for managing to fly so well effectively blinded. It does make him wonder whether this Chitauri needs eyes to see. 

"So this is, what, a vacation?" Tony says, because starting off a conversation by pulling a topic out of mid-air confuses people, disorients them, and Tony is more than willing to take advantage of that. Maybe that doesn't work with Chitauri psychology, but Tony's willing to take the chance. "Is Earth a resort spot for you people? Personally, I don't get it. I mean, yeah, the weather isn't bad, and we actually have a sun to get sunlight from, but I wouldn't think that would make up for the way we keep knocking you out of the sky. What will it take to make you understand that you just aren't going to win here?"

The Chitauri makes it up to one knee and then stops, hissing out a breath, one hand—with its extra fingers, Tony notices—fisting and loosening in the fabric of its clothing. Actual pain, then, or just extremely elaborate pretense. "Who dares?" the Chitauri says, voice low and rattling, chillingly inhuman.

"Dares to stand against the Chitauri?" Tony says, and rocks back on the heels of the suit, trying to convey mocking thoughtfulness through the suit. It probably doesn't work, but he gives himself credit for trying. "I'm going to have to go with everyone on this planet, actually." Maybe not physically, but resistance isn't just being the person on the frontlines; actually, sometimes Tony thinks that being the one on the frontlines is less daunting than being the one behind the scenes, or the one doing the rebuilding. Tony and the rest of his team might have been the only thing physically standing between the Chitauri and the island of Manhattan, but the people on the ground did all the rest of the work. Tony isn't about to denigrate that.

The Chitauri doesn't seem to give a damn what Tony says, though, because he goes on as if Tony never spoke, "Who dares to stand before a servant of Thanos, with only metal armor to protect him?"

There's really only one way to answer that. Tony opens the face plate of the armor, looks at where the Chitauri's eyes ought to be, and says, "Tony Stark. That's S-T-A-R-K, in case you didn't know, though if you were wondering how to spell it, you could always look it up on the outside of my tower. Where I live with, and stop me if this starts sounding familiar, the Avengers. You know, the team who blew your little army out of the sky." Tony takes a step forward and smiles toothily. "That's who I am. That's who dares. The real question is, who the hell are you?"

Which, okay, Tony is fully intelligent enough to understand that this situation is bad news, which Cap would say should be reacted to seriously. Thanos is a new name, Tony honestly hasn't ever heard that one before; he is, however, up enough on his Greek that he understands the root there. Thanos, as in Thanatos, the Greek personification of Death. Combine that with the fact that one of the Chitauri said he answered to this Thanos creep, and Tony's putting together a picture that really isn't good.

That said, though, Tony goes up against people with strange and occasionally frightening names all the time. It comes with the profession, actually. And let no one ever say that Tony backed down from a show of bravado.

"Stark," the Chitauri says, in a long, slow hiss. "The man of iron. Then I have found what I came for."

Tony...actually was not expecting that at all. "What?" he says, maybe a little stupidly, but seriously, what?

"I bear tidings from between the worlds," the Chitauri says, and Tony has the strange feeling that that phrase alone would be threatening if Tony knew a little bit more about the structure of what Thor calls the Nine Worlds. "Thanos knows your name, man of iron."

"So does the majority of the adult world," Tony snaps, still reeling. He's starting to have an inkling of where this is going, and he already doesn't like it. "What's your point?"

"Thanos knows those who are like him," the Chitauri says, as though Tony never spoke, and also, still, what?

"I don't know who the hell Thanos is," Tony says, "but I can promise you I'm nothing like him." He feels fairly confident in that promise, even.

The Chitauri's mouth splits into a wide grin, too wide and too sharp for a human smile. "Were you not like him, Tony Stark, his staff would never have broken to your hand." He says something else, too, something about death, but Tony is honestly tuned out by then, trying to process what's just been said.

The staff. Of all things, this is what that's about.

Tony is less surprised than he should be probably, because of course. Oh, of course this is Loki's fault. Tony was half expecting it to be, somehow.

That said, realistically, it's also Tony's fault. Tony might never admit to that blame out loud, but for god's sake, he's an adult. He made a choice and followed through on it, all of his own free will. He got himself involved in something he didn't understand, and this is where it got him: alone, with the Chitauri back on Earth because of him, and no sign of the Norse god who set off the whole thing.

Still, though. Tony blaming himself right now is going to do absolutely jack for the situation, so Tony pushes it aside and moves on. There's one thing he's still got left to use, after all.

"If your friend Thanos knows me so well," Tony says, and smiles back at the Chitauri with what he hopes is chilling cheerfulness, "then he should know that threatening me isn't going to end well. Not for him, but especially not for you. We've got a little phrase on Earth, I don't know if you've heard of it." Tony goes, in a split second, from having his posture relaxed and easy, to having one palm pointed straight at the Chitauri's face, repulsor whirring audibly in preparation for a shot. "It's called shooting the messenger, and I'm not above doing it."

"I do not come to threaten." The Chitauri admittedly doesn't look very threatening, down on one knee and looking straight up into a weapon, but Tony's not willing to let pity skew his judgment. "I come to parlay."

"Par—," Tony starts to say, and then everything connects, and Tony finds himself laughing, part out of affectation and part of out genuine amusement. "You're telling me someone named Thanos wants me as his ally? That's priceless."

"Do not laugh, human," the Chitauri says, voice almost a hiss. "Your race is a scourge upon the universe. Thanos offers to elevate you beyond them. He would allow you to watch as he completes his great work."

"Let me guess," Tony says. "Part of his great work is wiping my species off the face of the planet."

"The face of the universe," the Chitauri says, slowly, angrily. "Of every universe."

"Tell you what," Tony says. He isn't laughing any more. "This is what you're going to do. You're going to get up, and get off my planet, either willingly or because I tear a hole in the fabric of the universe and throw you through it, your choice.” Can Tony actually do that? No. Is truth more important than sounding good, in this situation? Also no. “You're going to go back to your little place between the worlds, and you're going to give Thanos a message from me. And remember this, now, because it's important: tell him he can just go fuck himself, and take his offer and his great work with him." Tony smiles magnanimously, just to rub that one in.

Tony almost can't follow the Chitauri's movement with his eyes, it's that quick—one second the Chitauri is on the ground, crippled, and the next the Chitauri is looming in front of him, with a short, sharp blade pressed to Tony's neck, uncomfortably close to his carotid artery. Whatever pain had the Chitauri down on his knees, it clearly is no longer a consideration; or, more likely, it was largely false to begin with. "You dare," the Chitauri says, very slowly.

"Yeah," Tony says, and adds a little more power to his repulsor, so that it whirs again from where it's pressed against the Chitauri's chest. "I do a lot of that, apparently." He pats his hand against the Chitauri's chest, the gesture anything but friendly. "People tend to get used to it over time. Now. I may not be an expert on Chitauri anatomy, but at this sort of range I could blow out most of your body cavity. I think that's a safe bet for killing just about anything, yourself included. If you want to just step away, I'll completely understand. If not," he pauses to shrug, using the movement to dig the circle of the repulsor into the Chitauri's chest as a little reminder, "I've got this weird feeling it's about to get really messy around here."

"I would kill you first," the Chitauri says, and his blade draws blood. Shit. Tony really hopes there aren't alien contaminants on that thing, it would suck to get out of this only to die of blood poisoning.

Tony raises an eyebrow. "You'd still be dead."

"As would you," the Chitauri says, practically spitting out every word, and there's a moment where Tony honestly doesn't know how this is going to end.

Then, suddenly, someone clicks their tongue, the sound of a scolding parent. "Children," Loki Laufeyson says, from behind Tony, and Tony closes his eyes. Another complication. Fantastic. "I spend a single month away, and return to find you at each other's throats. I need not tell you, I think, how disappointed this makes me."

Tony cannot, actually cannot help the way he responds, even with a knife at his throat and a Norse god at his back. "He started it."

A hand comes to rest on Tony's neck, graceful fingers splayed both over his skin and over the knife, and the cold of it sends a tiny shiver down Tony's spine. "This once, I believe you," Loki says, and his breath ghosts over the back of Tony's neck. "Come now, Chitauri. May we not be civil, here amongst us friends?"

"You keep strange company," Tony says, because for him sarcasm is a life choice rather than a lingual one. Loki's hand presses down, on both Tony's neck and the knife, and Tony takes that as the cue for silence it is, wincing at the deeper cut.

"Loki Silvertongue," the Chitauri says. "Traitor."

"Strong words," Loki says, and Tony knows that voice, even if can't he see the accompanying expression; Loki's threatening with politeness again. "True nevertheless, I grant you," and suddenly the knife in Tony's neck is cold enough that it burns, and Tony can't hold back a low, shaky exclamation of pain as his blood freezes where it falls. The Chitauri also hisses, and for a moment Tony thinks one or the other of the alien forces around him is going to kill him—it's terrifying, and deeply painful, to be the mortal caught in the middle of this.

Then the Chitauri releases the handle of the knife, and Tony briefly sees that his hand is blistered from cold before it's tucked away against the Chitauri's side. Before Tony can even worry about catching the released knife, Loki is holding it; Tony spends several seconds held at knifepoint by a Norse god, wondering whether his situation has just gotten better or worse.

The tip of the knife drops away from Tony's neck, and Tony takes a deep breath. Then another, and then one more; on the third he pulls his bravado up around him like a shield. "Thanks for not killing me,” he says, addressing the comment at Loki even though he refuses to look away from the Chitauri. “And for keeping me from finding out whether I'm faster than our Chitauri friend there.” He knows how quick the alien is, now.

"It was the least I could do," Loki says, tone utterly gracious, and Tony resists the urge to laugh. Finally, finally, Loki stops looming at Tony's back, stepping around Tony and forward until he stands between Tony and the Chitauri, partially facing both. "In the future, you might see to it that I need not repeat that courtesy."

A little honestly surprised, Tony says, "I didn't know you were even willing to repeat it. Learn something new every day."

The Chitauri hisses out a breath, head turning to look between Tony and Loki. "You are allies."

"That's—," Tony starts, only for Loki to cut him off with a quiet, cold laugh.

"How it will burn at Thanos, to know that for all his strength, he could not hold my allegiance, nor compel it from me. Yet here I stand, offering it freely to a human." Loki puts on such a genuine expression of sympathy that Tony is honestly impressed. "I do fear that you will not have a pleasant job, delivering that knowledge to him."

Alright, so Tony was going to say that calling them allies was a bit of an exaggeration, but apparently not so much on that one. Assuming this whole thing isn't a ploy, of course, which is a big ask in the first place. Loki as an ally. Huh.

Still, pretty much the cardinal rule of dealing with enemies is not showing surprise. Even if Loki is suddenly playing nice, there's the small matter of the Chitauri to deal with. So.

"He probably won't be too upset," Tony puts in, making his tone casual. "He has no idea what we can do yet, after all."

Loki smiles, and once again it's a show of coldness, not happiness. "Never fear, Stark. He'll learn."

"They usually do," Tony says. Then, addressing the Chitauri directly for the first time in a few minutes, he says, "This has all been your cue to leave, by the way. It's rude for guests to overstay their welcome."

"Poor manners indeed," Loki says, his voice shaded with what Tony guesses is genuine amusement at this latest farce. "Come," he says, and extends one arm towards the Chitauri. "Let me escort you out."

Understandably, the Chitauri isn't particularly quick to accept that offer. "The passage is blocked. It is not within your power to return me."

Loki shakes his head. "Perhaps your passage is closed, but you forget to whom you speak. I have my own ways." Loki gestures again with his arm, this time less extravagantly. "I lose patience, Chitauri. I will not give you the chance to come willingly again."

Slow as anything, the Chitauri reaches forward one many-fingered hand. "You will live to regret this," he says, and his hand freezes in mid-air. "Both the man of iron and the traitor god. Thanos will not forget this."

"I'm counting on it," Tony says. "Now hurry up. I think the traitor god is getting impatient."

The Chitauri finishes reaching forward, and clasps its hand over Loki's outstretched arm. Barely a second after the contact is made, Loki and the Chitauri both disappear into mid-air, leaving only a shimmer of green light behind.

Tony takes the moment alone to breathe in, deeply, and then out again. "This is definitely not good for my heart," he tells himself, which, okay, it's probably true. That doesn't mean Tony's going to stop, though.

Maybe a minute passes—just long enough for Tony to start checking his armor for damages from this latest fight, and wince at the fact that he's going to have to rebuild the suit yet again—before there's another flash of green light, and Loki is once again standing in front of Tony. Nothing about the god suggests to Tony that he's just been dimension hopping or whatever it is he does; not that Tony knows what dimension hopping does, physically, but still. He was expecting some wind-rustled hair, at least, and here Loki is looking like he just popped out to the store.

"That was quick," Tony says, more than a little appreciatively despite himself.

"Practice makes perfect," Loki returns, one eyebrow quirking upwards into a neat arch. "In any case, I did not have that far to go."

Something about the smugness in Loki's expression prompts Tony to say, "Your way wouldn't have happened to involve shoving him down a wormhole and hoping for the best, would it?"

"Who do you think I am, Tony Stark, that I would have need of hope?" Loki asks, the edge of a threat lying under his voice; despite the threat, though, the god's smile shrinks from the cold, toothy thing it was throughout the entire talk with the Chitauri into something warmer. "I know precisely where that wormhole goes."

Tony seems to have discovered what Loki teasing looks like. It's...strangely endearing, and Tony needs to stop thinking those sorts of things before he gets himself into something even he can't handle.

"I don't want to ask, do I?" Tony asks, and then corrects himself before Loki has a chance to speak. "Actually, who am I kidding, of course I want to ask. It's not the only thing I want to ask, either.” He raises one eyebrow, and says, pointedly, “We had a deal, Loki."

“And I will honor that deal,” Loki says, looking a little irritated that Tony implied otherwise.

“Well,” Tony says, and meets Loki's eyes, “go ahead, then.”

Confusion flits across Loki's expression, visible for just a second before Loki masks it in indifference. “You wish to speak here?" Loki asks, casting his eyes around to the random chunk of wooded area they landed in. Admittedly, the area doesn't have much going for it besides some sparse vegetation and a thin coating of frost on the ground; then again, Tony's never been much of a scenery guy.

"I don't see why not," Tony says, and crosses his arms, which as a gesture might lose impact because of the suit. "It's not as though this isn't private enough—or, what, is a nice view going to enhance the conversation?” He hopes his expression clearly gets across his thoughts on that possibility. “Here's as good as anywhere else. You owe me some answers. A lot of answers, actually."

"Funny," Steve's voice comes from almost directly behind Tony, tone harsher than Tony's ever heard from Steve before. Tony very nearly jumps out of his own skin, heart clenching tight in his chest. Slowly, he turns to see Cap, fully decked out in his suit, with his shield poised to throw. "I was just about to say the exact same thing."


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys. Okay. I had plans for how this chapter was going to go, I really did. They involved the confrontation with Steve that everyone wanted to see play out, and certain specific answers to questions you've probably had, and it was going to be awesome. 
> 
> Then I sat down to actually write it, and Tony categorically refused to let it happen. So this chapter is not what I planned to write, but instead what my Tony insisted was the better way. I'm quite possibly as surprised as you all might be at how this turned out.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING for this chapter: Loki's fall from the Bifrost is described as a suicide attempt, no more graphically than it was shown in Thor. That said, I know it isn't explicitly stated to be suicide in the film, and it is definitely addressed as such here. Read carefully, if that's going to be problematic.
> 
> Also, Loki's depiction of exactly what happened on the Bifrost is different here than it was in the film. This actually is for a reason, and if anyone is curious they can just ask me. I'll be more than happy to discuss what any of my characters are thinking of in this chapter.
> 
> Anyway, that all said, enjoy.

Tony's first reaction, stupidly enough, is to step in front of Loki, protectively. No, seriously. No one is more surprised than Tony at this move. He would like to have that move back and try another, thank you very much.

Of course, Tony doesn't get to have a second reaction, as Loki's first reaction is to reach out, catch hold of Tony—who is now more conveniently placed because of his ridiculous nervous system—and disappear them both in a flash of green light. 

It's the first time Tony's ever travelled by whatever Norse god teleportation Loki's such a big fan of, and he has to say, it doesn't agree with him much. Tony's not exactly sure which laws of physics Loki is bending, but what the whole process feels like to Tony's very mortal body is the approximate sensation of having a heart attack, smashed together with brief asphyxiation, ending with some sort of sickening lurch back into physicality. He has the distinct feeling that that mode of transport wasn't designed with mortals in mind; it takes everything he has not to be sick.

When Tony feels like he can safely stand back up straight without either vomiting or having every muscle in his body cramp at once, he straightens back up cautiously. “Right,” he says, still looking in the vicinity of his knees, “what the fuck was that?”

“You hardly need an answer to that, Stark,” Loki says, uninterestedly, sounding physically farther away than he was when Tony last saw him. “Unless you have forgotten what I am.”

Tony looks up, slowly, and immediately notices a few things. First, they're in an apartment, not the wooded area they were in moments ago—and not an abandoned apartment, Tony means a fully furnished one that looks like it's being lived in, which means it's completely possible he can now list 'involuntary breaking and entering' on his list of problems for the day. Secondly, Loki has made himself perfectly at home, and is currently sprawled, almost catlike, over a couch near Tony. And, thirdly, Cap is nowhere in sight.

Tony closes his eyes and breathes in slowly. Counting to ten to fight back anger is totally a thing, right? He has some memory of Pepper mentioning that. Anyway, it keeps him from punching a Norse god in the face, so clearly it works at least a little. “Right,” Tony says again, not managing to keep the irritation out of his voice, “maybe I should have clarified that question. What I actually meant to ask was, what the hell made you think that was a good idea?”

Loki raises one dark eyebrow in what is possibly the most condescending gesture ever. “I felt no need to find myself the target of your Captain America's shield. I assumed you felt the same. Unless I was wrong, and I interrupted some bizarre hobby of yours?”

“You being snide right now is just so helpful,” Tony snaps, and then forcibly calms down. Okay, so Loki is kind of an asshole, even when he isn't being openly hostile: Tony knew that much. One of them has to be the calm one in this situation, and apparently this whole scenario is fucked enough that Tony is the best candidate for maturity. He can consider exactly how strange that is later—for now, he just needs to make it happen. “Look. Do I enjoy playing target practice for Cap? No. But does it look suspicious as hell for you to just teleport us off god knows where, immediately after Cap catches us together? That one's a yes. I don't exactly need my team leader writing me off as going over to the dark side, alright, that's just something my week doesn't need.”

“You assume he would have believed a word you said, with me in your presence,” Loki says. Tony hears—and sees, in the sudden distance in Loki's eyes—an old bitterness behind those words. 

“Lesson one to being allies with Captain America,” Tony says, and suddenly he feels more tired than anything else. God. How is this now part of his life? “Cap is always willing to believe the best of people he trusts. Seriously. If you'd just let me stay and explain things to him—”

“I owe him no explanations,” Loki says, his tone vehement. “Nor is he any ally of mine. The deal that lies between us is solely that, Stark: between us.”

“Yeah, well,” Tony snaps, in return, “they may not be your allies, but they're sure as hell mine. If I'm going to be of much use in this deal of ours, I'm going to occasionally need their help. Alienating me from them isn't exactly conducive to getting that help. By simple logic—”

“I need you,” Loki says, his tone all but a hiss, with that dark, sharp thing back in his eyes: that admission hurt, Tony can tell. “You, Stark. Whatever considerations must be made for your other allies, they must come from you alone. I will not extend my trust beyond where I must.”

That one floors Tony. Just absolutely floors him, drives his anger straight back where it came from and breaks whatever argument he was about to make into tiny pieces. Trust. Fuck.

Trust is a big word for men like him and Loki. Tony understands himself well enough—and he's starting to understand Loki just well enough—to realize that between the two of them, they've got enough trust issues to span the Great Wall. If you'd asked Tony a week ago, or, hell, if you'd asked him yesterday, he never would have said trust was on offer between them. From the expression currently in Loki's eyes—not on Loki's face, of course, but Tony's long since learned to ignore that—Loki pretty much would have said the same.

Yet here they are, with the word trust hanging in the air between them. Tony kind of wants to shut it away, probably with a bad joke or a come-on or something. It would probably be safer to do that, to just ignore the elephant in the room until it goes away. The thing is, though, that Tony can't, not when he's faced with the undeniable fact that, when they were in danger, Tony trusted Loki with his back and stepped in front of him to take a blow. 

“Apparently we trust each other now,” Tony says, and it's kind of lucky there's another couch behind him, because he sits down hard without looking, and it would have looked really stupid for him to suddenly go crashing to the floor. The couch creaks, loudly, at the added weight of Tony in the suit. “So that's terrifying.” He's always had this problem where his mouth just talks without his brain's permission. It seems that's still going strong.

Loki says nothing. It's a particularly telling silence, as those things go.

Tony closes his eyes, as if he's going to find words behind them, and then opens them again. “Would you mind explaining to me,” he says, “exactly when that happened?” Then, because that sort of question is what gets snippy trite answers from Loki, he holds up a hand. “That's not the right question. I meant to ask exactly when this alliance between us became a thing. My confusion here, I should mention, is being caused by the fact that, when we last spoke, I'm pretty sure there wasn't anything even faintly resembling an alliance. There was bantering, and a deal, and then I spent a month where you never showed up once, and now suddenly we're allies?”

“When last we spoke, Stark,” Loki says, “you had yet to deliver on your end of our bargain. You made your show of good faith, in a perfectly timely fashion, and so our deal holds.”

“Right,” Tony agrees, cautiously, “that part I fully comprehend. A deal's still a very far cry from an actual...well, whatever this is.” He waves an arm between them, hoping the physical gesture will encompass what he's currently lacking words for.

Loki just raises his eyebrows, expressing skepticism in even that minute movement. “We struck a deal in which I offered you truth, and you offered me use of your nature. I would offer none other my honesty, Stark, and I suspect you would hesitate to offer your aptitude for destruction to others. What is alliance, if not an agreement to act in ways you generally might not, for the benefit of both?”

Tony blinks. He honestly never considered it that way before, but that...that's actually a pretty decent summary of every major alliance he's had throughout his life. For the Avengers, he tries as hard as he can to play well with others; for SHIELD, he puts away his instinctive dislike of authority, and at least mostly listens to Fury; and here he is, with Loki, ignoring the fact that he doesn't really trust people using his destructive tendencies, because Loki's honesty is probably worth it. Huh.

“That answer was far less complicated than I was expecting it to be,” Tony says. “If I'd known all it took to get simplicity with you was destroying the mind-controlling stick of someone named after the embodiment of death, I would have been all over that months ago.” That's a joke. Or at least, it's mostly a joke. Tony's going to take that as a sign of good mental health and move on.

Loki bears his teeth, less as a direct threat and more as a reminder. “Do not accommodate yourself to simplicity,” he says, and the truth underlying that statement makes Tony smile. Honesty in action, from the god of lies: it's a beautiful thing.

“Wouldn't dream of it,” Tony says, and that's a truth, too. It's like they're having a moment, or something, which—well. Pepper will be only too happy to tell anyone who asks exactly how Tony responds to moments. “What I would dream of is finally getting some answers, because from my perspective our deal's still looking a little one sided.”

Loki sits up from his couch, and brings his feet around to rest on the ground. Tony watches, oddly transfixed by the small motions, as he leans forward, resting his arms against his legs. “This will not be a short explanation, if I begin where I must,” Loki says. “Is there anything you would have, first?” 

Tony is actually mildly perturbed at the thought of Loki acting the good host, and the silence stretches a moment too long. Loki, as Tony's beginning to notice is common, covers up that implied rejection of his polite gesture with anger. “I do you a kindness, Stark,” Loki says, and the threat that's been mostly absent from his posture comes back full force. It probably says a lot about Loki as a person that such a small rejection brings such a drastic reaction—Tony files that away to consider later, and by later he means once he's somewhere where Loki can't immediately eviscerate Tony for any unflattering revelations he has.

In the meanwhile, Tony does what courtesy demands, and lies to the god of lies. “Hey, whoa,” he says, raising his hands placatingly, “that wasn't what the silence was about. I appreciate that kindness. I do. I was just wondering whether it's kosher to accept refreshments from an apartment you've pretty much broken into.”

Mercurial as ever, Loki's mood shifts immediately from anger to his usual, slightly condescending, amusement. “You may take what you like, Stark,” he offers generously, posture returning to neutrality rather than that dangerous tension. “This apartment is my own.”

“Seriously?” Tony asks, and then backtracks before Loki can speak. “Of course you mean that seriously, where the hell was I picturing you living, a cardboard box? I should have anticipated this one. I mean, we probably would have noticed you staying at the Hilton, and you have been on Earth for at least the last few months.” Prudently, he doesn't actually say the last part of that thought aloud: namely, that a former prince of Asgard would probably be used to living in comfort. Mentioning the former prince of Asgard thing around Loki pretty much ever seems like a bad idea.

“Have you noticed that you have a propensity to answer your own questions?” Loki asks, sounding amused. 

Tony offers him a genuine grin in return. “The least of my bad habits,” he says, which, honestly, comes out sounding more sexual than Tony meant it to. He's quick to step right around that pitfall, throwing his next thought into speech just to change the tone. “It must have been interesting, signing your lease. How does Loki, god of lies and mischief, translate into a background any landlord ever will accept in a tenant?”

“Quite simply,” Loki says. For a moment, just a moment, Loki's features seem to flicker—Tony watches as the sharp lines of Loki's face and body soften, as the length of those lines shorten, as his hair lengthens as though growing at higher than natural speed—and Tony loses track of the minute changes beyond that point, only noticing the greater effect. For that one moment, Tony is looking at exactly what Loki would look like if he were a woman. Then the moment's gone, and Loki's familiar sharp features return. “Loki, god of mischief and lies, is not the tenant here.”

Tony would like a moment to process the fact that Loki can turn into a woman. Actually, ideally, he would like more than a moment. He'd like at least a full day to explore all the possibilities there, and then the better part of the week after to make himself stop thinking of those possibilities, to shut them back away in the appropriate box in his mind. What he actually gets, though, is that one moment: and, accordingly, he only gets as far as acknowledging the fact that of course Loki, who is a stupidly handsome man, also makes for a beautiful woman. 

Then politeness dictates he has to speak again. Tony manages to say, “That's...interesting.” He thinks he sounds adequately composed when saying it, even.

Something in the look in Loki's eyes seems to suggest differently. “I am glad you think so,” Loki says, and the words dip into a lower register than they've any right to. Tony isn't sure what to do with that, exactly. Luckily for him, Loki's next words sound completely normal, like whatever the hell that just was is completely shut away. “Am I to take this inane line of questioning to mean that you want for nothing?”

Tony, pointedly, puts aside the phrasing there, and focuses on the meaning. “Nah,” he says, “I'm good.” Then he thinks better of that and says, “Actually, wait, give me five seconds to get out of the suit, and then I'll be good.” If they're going to have a long conversation, Tony would rather not have it while inside a giant suit of metal, however perfectly designed for his body's form that suit is. Maybe it's stupid to strip out of the suit willingly in front of a known supervillain, but Tony's been in street clothes before with Loki and not died from it. And, well. There's also that whole trust thing, which is no less scary now than it was fifteen minutes ago.

He stands, moves to an open area behind the couch, and says, “Jarvis? Let's get me out of this suit, please.”

“Yes, sir,” Jarvis says through the suit's external speakers, tone pointedly neutral enough that it might as well be openly disapproving. Tony resists the urge to roll his eyes. Jarvis does, after all, take his health very seriously—and, more importantly, Jarvis does what he's asked, trusting Tony's judgment.

When that's done, Tony takes his seat again. It didn't escape his notice that Loki sat up a little more intently when Tony talked to Jarvis briefly, but that is a story for another time. Tony doesn't share Jarvis with just anyone, tentative alliance or no. “So,” Tony says, and claps his hands together for effect. “You said you had a story.”

Loki looks down at his hands for a moment and says, “Yes.” Then, suddenly, those hands raise, and dance through the air—and, in some magical equivalent of sleight of hand, the air between Loki's hands goes from empty air one moment to filled with color and movement the next.

Tony watches, attention caught, as the image clarifies to show a city, an alien city all full of metallic spires and angular, levitating buildings. The city swims across an almost impossibly beautiful sea of stars. “Is that Asgard?” Tony guesses, leaning in closer to make out the minute details. It sure as hell isn't any city on Earth, that much Tony fully understands. “The degree of realism here is astounding, by the way.” Seriously, there are tiny people walking around the city, breathing and speaking with each other and living, all in miniature. The only thing remotely like this that Tony's ever seen before are his own computer-generated projections, but even they don't usually duplicate details on that level.

“Yes,” Loki says again, and something in his tone makes Tony look up from the image for just long enough to catch the remnants of a rueful smile crossing his face. “I find some things are easier to show, than to speak of.” Loki draws one hand through the air, and the image shifts with the movement, suddenly tracking in on what appears to be a solid rainbow acting as a bridge. Tony tries not to wonder too much about how that works. “How much has Thor told you about my leaving Asgard?”

“Not much,” Tony says, and taps his fingers together, trying to piece together drunken snippets of conversation. “Mostly he only talked about it when we managed to get him really drunk, and—well, I don't know if you've done much drinking with mortals, but by the point in the night where the Asgardians are wasted, usually we mortals have already passed out. I mean, not me, but—” and Tony is going to leave that particular sentence right there, before he needs to think too much about what exactly his lifestyle probably means for his liver. “Well, anyway, I got the impression that you didn't exactly leave home with a cheerful farewell and blessings, if that's what you're asking. I don't know much beyond that.”

Loki's face stays utterly, actually somewhat frighteningly, neutral at that—and, worse, he's looking down at his own magical image, so Tony can't get anything out of his eyes. Well. Looks like Tony's getting words alone, for this story. “How to explain this, then,” Loki says, musingly. “In brief—the Asgardians have, for centuries of your time, had one race as their enemy.” For a second, the image flashes, and Tony sees a tall, blue-skinned figure emerge from Loki's magic, meeting Tony's gaze with a red-eyed glare; then Loki waves his hand through the air, a faint look of distaste on his face, and the image of the rainbow bridge reforms.

“The Jotunns?” Tony asks, and raises his hands when Loki looks at him sharply. “Hey, just because Thor didn't tell me much doesn't mean I didn't do my homework.” Tony can't stand knowing things, after all—that's basically the one trait that got him into this whole situation.

“You are correct,” Loki says. From the magic hanging in the air, a solitary figure forms on the bridge—and, holy shit, that's Loki. Tony would recognize that armor and the posture anywhere. There's a miniature Loki, perfect to the smallest detail, standing on the bridge in the image, casting a contemplative look at the metallic hub at the end of the bridge. The image of Loki is even blinking, eyelashes almost too fine for Tony to make out—how's that for detail? “I discovered a means by which the Jotunn might be—kept from ever again being a threat.” From the hub at the end of the bridge, a blinding light shoots off into the dark.

In the image, the miniature Loki strides towards the end of the bridge, determination and something like hurt on his face. “You wanted to destroy them,” Tony says, because that he can understand. He saw that look on his own face in the mirror after Afghanistan. He knows what it looks like to want to grind your enemies into less than ash, so they can never hurt you again; the image is detailed enough for Tony to see that on Loki's face.

“Just so,” Loki says, with a curl of amusement in his voice. In the image, Thor comes racing down the rainbow bridge, blond hair streaming out behind him, and an equally determined look on his miniature face. “Needless to say, Thor disagreed with my methods.” Miniature Loki and Thor spill back out onto the rainbow bridge, already at blows with each other. “We fought,” Loki says, and Tony watches it happen in real time, tiny metallic clashes reaching his ear with every collision of their weapons. Finally, the Loki in the image is knocked to the ground, and pinned there by the weight of Mjolnir, as Thor strides off to the end of the bridge. Pain edges visibly across Thor's face, and then he throws out a hand, summoning his hammer and releasing the struggling figure of Loki. With his full force behind the hammer, Thor strikes down at the bridge—and, after a few blows, it shatters, throwing Loki and Thor both into the air.

A grey-haired figure appears on the bridge in time to catch Thor, and though Tony's never seen the man before, he's willing to go out on a limb and say that, between the eye patch and the way that Thor and Loki both immediately turn their attention to him, that's Odin Allfather himself. Loki, dangling at the end of a spear, yells something, but Tony can't hear the words. A moment later, Odin speaks. Tony's so caught up in the image playing out in front of his eyes that it almost surprises him when Loki himself speaks. “I fell,” he says, a little sardonically, as the image of his form does just that, plummeting down towards the hole in space the light from the bridge made.

Tony shakes his head, because Loki's face in the image is still clearly visible to him even as he falls, and Tony knows that look. “That was suicide,” he says, voice almost a whisper though he didn't mean it to be that way. He looks up at Loki, almost involuntarily, because it's stupid, but he needs to see Loki as he looks now, alive and angry and not just resigned to his fate. Seeing that look of complete indifference to his own survival on Loki's face—well. Tony doesn't like seeing that, is all.

Loki looks back at Tony, expression still pointedly blank. “Ever observant, Stark,” Loki says, tone as flat as his expression. The only emotional cue Tony gets from him at all is that he matches Tony's volume—suddenly they're basically whispering at each other, while sitting barely three feet apart. Tony guesses Loki isn't any more fond of rewatching his part of his history than Tony is of seeing it.

In the image, Loki falls into the hole in space, and is gone. 

Tony finds his voice again. “Where did that fall take you?” he asks, because he assumes this is what Loki's been building up to. 

“An excellent question,” Loki says, and waves his hand through the air. The image shifts at the movement, and suddenly all the clarity before falls away, as the image becomes tableau of shifting shades of black, writhing around each other in a confusing tangle of colorlessness. The small image of Loki is the only point of color in the whole thing, and he seems almost drowned out by the ocean of black he's falling through. Sometimes, and it happens too quickly for Tony to be sure of this, it seems like that blackness reaches out to touch him—the tiny figure of Loki recoils and winces from those touches at first, and then seems to grow accustomed to them. Finally, Loki impacts against something, an object that doesn't seem solid until Loki's body collapses against it with a jarring force. Loki curls in against himself on the ground, clearly exhausted beyond the point of movement. Around him, the shadows solidify enough to loom.

From the shadows forms a familiar figure: the Chitauri he and Loki encountered earlier today. The Chitauri gestures at Loki's huddled form, and the shadows reach out to lift him up. “It was there,” Loki says, sounding almost conversational now, “that I first met Thanos.” He lifts one hand and waves it lazily through the air, dispelling the image altogether. “I would show you his face, but then there is the danger that he could use it to see us in return. You'll forgive me if that is not something I eagerly anticipate.”

“I didn't actually know people could do that,” Tony says, sitting back against his couch. 

Loki shrugs, a graceful lift and fall of his shoulders. “The dangers of entering into my world, Stark,” he says. It's sort of a strange world Tony lives in, when Loki himself isn't the greatest danger present in any given situation. Not that Loki isn't dangerous, but he seems to be making an effort to not be actively threatening toward Tony himself. That story is giving Tony the feeling that Thanos isn't likely to do him any similar favors.

“So,” Tony says, and clasps his hands together, turning that new information over in his head, “I've been getting the distinct feeling from both you and that Chitauri that this Thanos guy is kind of a big deal, but I've yet to get anything specific to back that up. Mind explaining exactly what he wanted with me, and where your plan to use me comes into that?”

“Ah,” Loki says, somewhat chidingly, “just because the show is over does not mean the story has reached its close. Allow me to complete my tale, and then I will address whatever questions of yours are not answered.” 

“I can do that,” Tony cedes, and rolls one hand through the air, miming 'go on.' 

Loki looks at Tony's hand in a way that suggests that gesture may not be universal after all, but doesn't actually ask. “Another danger of my world, Stark, is that many of the figures who exist to your people only as myth are quite real to me and mine. There is, for instance, a Lady Death, in the flesh. I first learned of Thanos' madness when he explained to me his intention to court her.”

Tony feels himself grimace instinctively. “He's in love with death?” he asks, and when Loki nods his grimace deepens. “Excuse me while I try very hard not to think of the many, many horrifying implications there. God. That's taking necrophilia to a new and even more unnecessary level.”

“Precisely,” Loki says, “though it is perhaps not as you think. The Lady Death is, in honesty, very beautiful, if very cold. It is not her form which is repulsive, but rather her nature.” Tony looks curiously at Loki there—he definitely heard something odd in Loki's tone there. Loki catches the glance and says, “I can explain no better. Should you ever meet her, Stark, you will understand what I mean. None who know her can love her, save Thanos.”

Tony shakes his head. “Right, so, Thanos is a crazy person. I'm with you so far.” Then something clicks in Tony's brain, a stream of thought that was running unattended since Loki first mentioned Thanos courting death, and Tony says, in realization, “His sending you to Earth—that was part of the courtship, wasn't it? Sending his army to kill people, that's like—what, his version of sending her flowers?”

“You understand, perhaps, why I attempted not to kill unduly,” Loki says, yes, Tony absolutely understands not wanting to be some sort of sick matchmaker in this violent courtship. “It is, however, the least of his gifts. Ultimately, Thanos aims to impress his Lady with...shall we say, unique gifts. The deaths of those who are like him, to prove himself master of even those who would be his equals.”

Tony remembers the Chitauri saying Thanos knows those who are like him and shudders. “People like you and me,” Tony says. He doesn't have to ask whether he's right or not.

Loki nods. “I first came to understand this after some time in Thanos' presence. He saw in me what you saw, as I fell from the bridge—that, then, I would have embraced death.” Loki doesn't spare himself by cushioning those words, Tony can't help but notice; he just says it, like the fact that he was actively suicidal is no more than a side-note to this story. “He mistook that resignation to my own end for a love of Death to match his own. I believe he thought to shape me, in a way. By having me lead his armies, and gaining more deaths to my name, he thought to make me a more meaningful sacrifice for his Lady.”

“So you sabotaged his plans and your invasion failed,” Tony filled in. A separate line of thought sparks, and Tony asks, “How did you manage that with his scepter's hooks in your head, by the way?”

“With considerable difficulty,” Loki says, and smiles the smile that bares every single one of his teeth. Right. 

“Then you were taken back to Asgard, where I'm assuming the existence of those...what, brain hooks?” Tony shakes his head. His vocabulary is going to need serious updating if he keeps getting dragged into situations involving magic. “Whatever, where Odin saw Thanos' compulsion in your mind and reduced your charges accordingly.”

“Correct,” Loki says. “Sometimes the truth is a liar's best weapon, as well you know.”

Tony puts that aside, because he's more thinking aloud at this point than having a conversation. He's got this niggling thought that there's something important he needs to know here, and he's damned well going to figure out what that is. “Then you came back to Earth, when your punishment was done?” He's getting closer—a question sparks and Tony goes with it. “Why? Why come back to Earth at all, if Thanos was still going to be interested in having you for a sacrifice, and Earth was the last location he had for you? Why not stay safely on Asgard?”

“Stark, I am not precisely greeted by adoring crowds when I walk the streets of Asgard,” Loki says, but Tony waves him away.

“Alright, granted, you might not be winning any popularity contests on Asgard any time soon, but there are eight other worlds besides Earth. You can't have pissed off everyone on all eight of those worlds.” Tony thinks of who he's talking to and corrects himself. “Well, maybe you have, this is you we're talking about—” Loki grins at that, seeming almost amused by Tony's assessments of his abilities to irritate everyone he meets ever “—but you also have magic. I have to assume you could just disguise yourself and live peacefully somewhere else. So why Earth?”

“I was bored,” Loki says, lightly, and Tony ignores that too.

“True, but not the entire truth,” he assesses. “What has Earth got that no other planet—” and his thoughts come to a screeching halt at his answer. “Me,” Tony says, slowly, and looks at Loki hard. “Earth has me on it.”

Loki laughs, a bright, genuine sound. “Your ego, Stark—,” he starts to say.

“Is well deserved and hard earned,” Tony answers for him, arrogance on default. “Seriously, though. The only thing you've done on Earth, in the months you've been here, are launch random attacks on unimportant targets, and make our deal. I have to assume our deal is the significant factor here. So, what? You came to Earth months ago because—” another link falls into place, and Tony breathes out, “because I'm like you. Because I'm destructive by nature, like you threw at me in our first conversation about your motives, and you knew that Thanos might be equally willing to mistake my aptitude for death for a love for it, like the mistake he made with you. And you know exactly what I do to people who make targets of me, you can't not.”

This is making some sort of scary sense, like some sort of warped chess game Tony didn't know he was a piece in until just now. “You made me destroy Thanos' staff so that he'd look at me, because you knew once he was interested in me I'd have no choice but to help you. Here I thought I was being so smart, talking you into our deal, and you'd decided months before that you were going to have my help regardless of what I wanted.”

Tony breaks off, aware that he's slightly out of breath from getting that all out in one rush. There's silence for a long while, as he and Loki just look at each other. Then the corners of Loki's lips curl upwards, and he says, bowing slightly at the waist, “Clever as always, Tony Stark.”

Tony laughs, because it's either that or completely fall apart, and Tony currently doesn't have that luxury. “Apparently not quite enough,” he says, because seriously, this thing where he's perpetually a step behind Loki is getting a little old. “Loki, come on. There have to be easier ways to do things like this. Normally when people want help, they just ask.”

Loki just shrugs, and asks, “Would you have granted me your help, had I asked?”

Tony doesn't have a good answer for that. He's starting to suspect that yes, apparently he would have—and he doesn't like what it says about him that that's the case. “I guess I should be flattered that a Norse god thought I was dangerous enough to be a worthwhile ally,” he says, more to himself than to Loki.

Loki nods. “Only you, Stark,” he says, which isn't so different from what he said before they got into this whole explanation, but has a rather different implication now.

Tony scrubs one hand over his face and into his hair, trying to make his brain slot all this into place. “Well,” he says, finally, after a little while of silence. “It looks like you've got my help now, however this all started. Fuck.” This is going to be difficult to explain to the Avengers. Actually, scratch that, this is going to be nearly impossible to explain to Tony's team, and it's stupid and dangerous and Tony means it anyway. He's going to do this, despite everything.

“I guess there is an upside to this,” Tony says. “Possibly the only one who's going to be more fucked than I am in this situation is Thanos.” 

Loki smiles, his predator's smile. “Precisely,” he says, and okay. Okay, so together they're going to tear worlds apart, if that's what it takes.

Tony drops his head into his hands and says, with great feeling, “Fuck.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys. This is a few hours late, due to internet issues, but here you are. I'm going to keep this note brief so I can post faster and just say that this chapter kind of fought me, so if there are errors I'll come back and correct them later.
> 
> Enjoy.

What Tony wants to do, at this point, is find somewhere nice and quiet, and possibly panic. Panic, he thinks, is probably the rational response to finding out you've been manipulated into an alliance with a Norse god. Then again, panic has been the rational response to a lot of things in Tony's life, and, frankly, he almost never has time for it. Tony's pretty good at pushing through panic by now, at using it to fuel whatever crazy thing he needs to do next to come out whole.

So, what Tony actually winds up doing is planning.

Okay. Maybe there are about thirty seconds where he contemplates his own knees very intently and tries not to think about the overall direction of his life. But those thirty seconds are all the time he gives himself—after that, he looks up, meets Loki's eyes, and flashes his best cocky grin.

“So,” he says, “exactly how deep was the hole you threw the Chitauri down?”

Loki, to his credit, keeps up with Tony's thought process—and Tony really does have to give him credit for that, considering the fact that Bruce is about the only other person alive who can manage that feat. “We have, perhaps, a month before Thanos hears of our audacity,” Loki supplies, and arches one dark eyebrow at that last word. Somehow, Tony doubts that that word has ever sounded quite so suggestive before.

“Is just pissing off his messenger enough to have Thanos come after us?” Tony asks.

“I doubt it,” Loki says, looking contemplative. “He is mad, yes, but no fool. He will not strike at us unless he believes it to be to his benefit, or he is angered beyond reason.” 

“And we can't just go to him?” Tony asks.

Loki shakes his head. “No. He and his army reside between the worlds. No path of mine will bring us there. The fall which originally brought me within his reach was not one I would repeat, and you it would kill outright. Even should we reach him safely, we would be alone, in Thanos' territory, with all his armies coming to his defense. He must come to us—and, as I have said, he will not do so without purpose.”

“Angered beyond reason it's going to be, then,” Tony says. A small voice in his head—one that sounds eerily like Steve's, actually—pipes in to remind him of just how bad that idea is. Tony quashes it. He knows this is a bad idea. Sometimes, though, bad ideas lead to the best plans; some of Tony's best plans have come from desperate, terrible ideas. Hell, he wouldn't be alive today if he hadn't decided building the Iron Man suit in a cave in Afghanistan while terrorists watched his every move was worth the risk. “Alright, then,” Tony says, and claps his hands together, “how exactly do we enrage a crazy god?”

Loki meets Tony's eye, and grins sharply. “You certainly have more experience at that task than most mortals can claim, Stark,” he says, and okay, apparently they've hit a point where they can joke about Loki throwing him out of a window. Tony should probably be offended, but, truth be told, he was working pretty hard to hit Loki's buttons at this point; it's not like Loki's wrong. 

“I don't think I can just invite Thanos in for a drink,” Tony says. 

“Perhaps not,” Loki says. Then, slowly, he says, “Stark. You realize you have not considered the other option.”

“What—,” Tony starts to say, because he's really only seen one option here, and then he catches on. “You mean convincing Thanos that killing us would be to his benefit? I don't really see how we can do that. If he's saving us up for a special occasion, he probably won't be in any hurry to kill us off. The longer he lets us live, the greater the chances we'll kill somebody else, you know, add a shiny ribbon on top—”

Tony's brain, finally, makes the connection to what Loki's implying; he cuts himself off, mid-ramble, and says, “No. No, we aren't going to just go around killing people so that Thanos will decide offing us is worth it.”

“Spare me your moral qualms,” Loki says, with a sneer. “I did not mean you would take lives, Stark.”

“But you would,” Tony says, not giving Loki a second's pause.

Loki inclines his head, a slow nod. “Does it truly surprise you that I am willing?” Loki asks, sounding almost genuinely curious.

“No,” Tony answers, immediately, because it's the truth. He knows exactly who he's dealing with here, and exactly what worth Loki places on mortal lives. Just because Tony seems to have become the exception to the rule doesn't mean the rule doesn't still exist. “Still. I value life, even if you don't. If you go around randomly killing things, this little alliance is over, no questions asked. Understand?”

“Do not think to give me ultimatums,” Loki says, expression closing off, eyes darkening.

Tony snaps back, “Ultimatum. Singular. That's where I draw my line, Loki. Listen to me or not, that's your choice, but know that I won't help you if you deliberately take an innocent life during our alliance.”

“Such a hero, Stark,” Loki says, and for all that his voice has dropped to all but a purr, he still sounds dangerous.

Tony has to laugh at that. “Hardly,” he says, when the laughter's done, because come on. Tony may be useful, and he may be currently trying pretty damned hard to keep the general populace safe, but Tony's a realist. He knows himself pretty well. This has never been about being a hero, for Tony; just about doing one good thing, if he can.

That, oddly enough, makes Loki's dark mood subside. “Very well,” Loki says, and that's the end of it. “Then we enrage the mad god, after all.”

“Good,” Tony says, in about the least condescending tone he can manage. Setting Loki off again won't actually help them any, even if Tony does kind of like arguing with the god now that actual death seems to be off the table as a consequence. “Back to plan A, then: how exactly do we manage that?”

“If any of his Chitauri come to Earth, destroy them,” Loki offers.

Tony nods. After the events of the invasion, Tony's perfectly happy to take out any Chitauri who try to screw with his planet. “Okay, but that only works if he sends Chitauri. We need to be proactive about this—we can't just sit back and wait for Thanos to come to us.”

“We have only a month in which to carry out this plan, Stark. Whatever you suggest, try to restrain your ambition this once.”

“A month?” Tony asks. “I thought you said Thanos wouldn't react that harshly to our message.”

“I did,” Loki acknowledges, “and meant it truly. He will not attack us with so slight a provocation. He might, however, take a greater interest in our actions, and turn his attention to our movements.” Right. This is the guy who could use Loki's magic to see them, if Loki showed a picture of his face; Tony probably should have considered that Thanos would have ways to see them. So. They have a month of privacy, about; Tony's done more with less.

“Just falling back on the classics, here,” Tony says, brainstorming aloud, “but have you considered hitting on his girlfriend?”

Skepticism and surprise cross Loki's face, evident in the lines of his brow and the quirk of his lips. “You would have me court the Lady Death?” Loki asks, tone fully implying that Tony's gone off his rocker.

“Why not?” Tony asks, liking this plan more now that he's actually saying it. “You said you'd met her. If you have some way of getting in contact with her, just—do whatever the Norse god equivalent of taking her to dinner is. Light candles, bring her flowers, tell her how much you admire the way she takes the souls of the living, whatever.” Loki just keeps looking at Tony, now inscrutably, and Tony shrugs. “What? It might be middle school tactics, but in my experience genuinely crazy people aren't exactly known for their emotional stability. Jealousy is a powerful motivator.”

“It is...possible,” Loki says, after a long moment, and his corners of his lips twitch faintly, “if distasteful.”

“I'm not telling you to sleep with her,” Tony says, and has to bite back a shudder of his own at the mental image that provokes, “just to woo her a little. I mean. The story you told me mentioned a lot about Thanos being in love with Death, but not much about what she thought about the whole process. Maybe you'll make for a refreshing change.”

“If Thanos believes his suit to be genuinely challenged, that would enough to make him act,” Loki says. He sounds like he's thinking over the possibilities there, albeit reluctantly. There's a silent moment, and then Loki says, “This is an insane plan, Stark.”

Tony shrugs. “And Thanos is an insane god, so what does that tell you?” It hasn't escaped his notice that Loki hasn't said no, either; by this point in the conversation, that lack of denial is as good as acceptance. “I'd do it myself, if that helps, except you're the one who already knows her.” It's the truth—Tony's willing to flirt with just about anything with two legs and a pulse, provided he doesn't actually have to follow through on his flirtations at the end of the day. Still, they have a time limit, and while Tony is good, he's never actually slept with a god before. Loki may be prickly, but he's also gorgeous, Tony doesn't deny that; he'll probably do a better job than Tony could.

Loki closes his eyes and says, “Against my own better judgment, yes. I'll do it.”

Tony stands and walks towards where he thinks the kitchen is. “You're a trooper,” he says, as he walks, and claps Loki on the shoulder as he passes. Then, wisely, he gets out of Loki's immediate reach, just in case cheerful sarcasm is what finally pushes the god over his tolerance limit. “I'm going to get a glass of water,” he announces over his shoulder, as he goes to do just that. “Do you want anything?”

He takes Loki's silence as a no, and then has a delightful minute where he tries to figure out where, exactly, the god of mischief keeps his glasses. He figures it out after a minute—first because he's a genius, and second because there's only so much cabinet space to go through in a New York City apartment—and finally gets the drink his dry throat's been needing for the better part of half an hour. 

When he finally moves back out into the living room, Loki doesn't look homicidal. He looks—well, neutral for the most part, with his eyes downcast, but Tony can pick out hints of both amusement and resignation there, and he doesn't think Loki's actively faking those emotions right now. “So,” he says, more to announce his presence than anything else, and Loki looks up at the sound. “I've got two problems we still need to solve. First, when Thanos does lose it and come after us, is he going to bring his army with him?”

“I can only assume he will,” Loki says, and Tony nods at the confirmation.

“Then we can't be on Earth when he comes after us,” Tony says, firmly. He holds up a hand to silence Loki when Loki opens his mouth and says, “Seriously. Earth can't take another invasion. We've had, what, most of a year since the first one, and New York City is still recovering.”

“I was not suggesting we lure him here,” Loki says, sounding a little irritated that Tony interrupted him in the first place. “Had you let me speak, Stark, I would have suggested we bring him to Asgard, instead.”

Tony thinks that over. It isn't a bad idea, as such—having a world full of warriors as skilled as Thor at their backs would be a great advantage in another fight against Thanos. There's one thing he needs to check, first. “You aren't, say, suggesting Asgard because of a certain deep-seated and long-lasting conflict between you and its king, are you?” If Loki's suggesting this as some sort of backhanded revenge, Tony's going to have to call veto.

Loki merely raises one eyebrow and says, “I know my enemies. Thanos is a danger to me—whatever my feelings for the people of Asgard, they are not a threat. I am not such a fool as to put myself in harm's way intentionally.”

Tony isn't entirely sure he buys that, but it isn't like he has a better option, so he goes with it. “Alright. Asgard. You realize that means we'll have to tell Thor, don't you?”

“You are his teammate, Stark,” Loki says. “If he is to be told, it is your task to tell him.” 

“Okay,” Tony says, because that's not a problem. Tony can talk to Thor—and, unlike some people in the room, he can talk to Thor without it turning into a screaming argument. That is, provided the Avengers don't think Tony's a villain, he can talk to Thor. Come to that, he should probably get in contact with his team soon, and at least try to explain this whole mess. “Second problem: how exactly do you kill a god?”

The look on Loki's face isn't exactly promising. “I was kind of hoping you'd have an easy answer for that,” Tony admits.

“It is not a simple task,” Loki says, which Tony assumes is Loki-speak for 'no fucking clue.' 

Tony takes a deep breath and says, “Well. We have a month. Between the two of us we'll come up with something.” They probably will—between Loki's magic and Tony's science, he figures they have the collective skills necessary to do just about anything. If there's a way to kill a mad god, they'll figure it out. If not...well. Tony doesn't want to think about that too hard.

“A month,” Loki agrees, “in which I must woo the Lady Death away from her paramour, you must convince Thor of the worthiness of our plan, and we must, between the two of us, find a way to kill the mad titan.”

Tony says, “The first person to say 'how could this possibly go wrong' is going to be shot,” and Loki laughs.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is kind of short, I admit. This is because I've had absolutely no time to write in the past week, and also am currently sleep deprived--and, frankly, some of the events that I planned to cover in this chapter deserve my full ability to focus on them, rather than whatever I could muster right now. Bear with me, next week's chapter will be longer, plottier, and written by an author who's actually slept. 
> 
> So, yes, I fully admit you're kind of getting a filler chapter here. That said, enjoy, and I'll return with plot next week.

In case this wasn't adequately apparent, Tony Stark is very, very smart.

Sometimes, this manifests itself in feats of—if Tony does say so himself—engineering genius. Not just anyone could be Iron Man, no matter what Cap might have intimated when they first met, all those months ago; the Iron Man suit is so far beyond any comparative technology being produced that it's in a class entirely of its own. Sometimes, his intelligence shows itself in tactics, in knowing exactly how much energy from the arc reactor will compute to how much velocity which will allow Tony to weave around a battlefield just so and come up on an enemy's blind spot.

Sometimes, his intelligence shows itself in little things, like, say, remembering to call ahead before he just shows up in the Avengers tower with a Norse god. Yeah. Never doubt the importance of the little things.

Bruce's cell phone rings once, twice, and Tony taps his fingers together impatiently. Not for the first time in fifteen minutes, he regrets his decision to use his own body as a blunt weapon against the Chitauri. He did exactly as much damage to the boot thrusters as he thought he did, essentially rendering the suit flightless; sure, he could put the suit back on and walk, or take a cab, but somehow he thinks a giant metal suit walking across Manhattan wouldn't go unnoticed. Having Loki as his primary means of transportation is...well, not terrifying, not anymore, since Tony's gotten the picture by now that Loki doesn't intend to actively do him harm. It's still troubling, though, not least because Tony doesn't really enjoy Loki's traveling methods.

Finally, Bruce picks up. His tone alone is enough to tell Tony that he checked the caller ID before he answered, and that Tony's absolutely in the doghouse where the Avengers are concerned. “Tony,” he says, and that's it. No hello, even.

“That bad, huh?” Tony asks, trying to resign himself to the inevitable fallout. 

“I can't imagine why you'd think that,” Bruce says, dryly. Which, okay, at least if Bruce is still using sarcasm instead of that polite distance he's so good at, it means Tony hasn't fucked things over irreparably with Bruce yet. Whether that holds true for his other teammates, Tony has no way of knowing—but it is a bit of a relief that Bruce, at least, is willing to believe the best of Tony.

“Right,” Tony says, “well. If Cap happens to be standing right behind you looking disapproving, please tell him for me that I'm planning on coming home and explaining right now. And that there is a perfectly good explanation for all this.” Tony looks at Loki, now standing in front of his windows and watching the sunset, and gauges how likely he is to get himself killed by saying this last. Considering that Loki seems to be paying no attention to Tony whatsoever, there's about a fifty fifty chance that he's actually not interested, with the other fifty being that he's actually listening intently and just covering that up with a bored expression. What the hell, Tony decides, it's not like he's never irritated the god of mischief. “Also, please mention that I would have happily given that explanation hours ago, if Loki hadn't decided effectively kidnapping me was a fun new hobby.” Loki raises one dark eyebrow, but doesn't look away from the dipping sun, so Tony counts that as a win.

“Kidnapping?” Bruce asks, voice going subtly sharper on the words.

Fun as it is to picture the Hulk chasing Loki across Manhattan for Tony's sake, Tony kind of needs his new ally alive, and with an intact spine. “Completely benign kidnapping,” Tony promises. “No mental, physical or emotional harm was done to any involved party.”

Reassurance given, Bruce says, voice dry again, “One second, then.” Tony is completely unsurprised that Steve actually was standing over Bruce's shoulder for this conversation—actually, his bet would be that all the other Avengers are doing the same. He can picture the expressions most of them are probably wearing, even. Much longer than a second later, Bruce comes back on the line. “Message received,” he says. “I've got a question, though.”

“And by you, you mean...?” Tony asks, deliberately trailing off.

“Myself,” Bruce says. “I'm not playing messenger. I would hand off the phone if someone else wanted to talk.”

“Fair enough,” Tony says. “So, your question?”

“Why call ahead? If you're just going to come home and explain, I mean.”

“Well,” Tony says, and though his voice stays steady he lets himself wince, because Bruce and the other Avengers can't hear a flinch over the phone. “Two reasons, really. First, I wanted to be sure I wasn't going to be shot at—or tackled to the ground and beaten, I hadn't taken that out as an option—when I showed up. And more importantly, I wanted to be sure my ride wasn't going to be shot on arrival.”

“Your ride?” Bruce asks, with a tone that suggests he knows what Tony is about to say, and he doesn't particularly like it.

“The Norse god of lies and his utter defiance of the laws of physics,” Tony confirms. When Bruce just sighs, loud enough to be completely audible over their connection, Tony says, “Hey. It's that or cabbing it in the Iron Man suit, alright?”

“This is a bad idea, for the record,” Bruce says, and Tony snorts.

“Bruce, come on. You think I don't know that? Believe me, this is only the tip of the iceberg of bad ideas I have gone through in the last twenty-four hours. So long as it isn't a bad idea that gets me fired at, I'm already doing way better than my average today.”

“I'll tell the others,” Bruce says, and Tony grins.

“You're still my favorite, Bruce,” he says. “I'll be there in five minutes, maybe less.”

“Alright,” Bruce says, and hangs up. Jarvis—because seriously, who needs a cellphone when they could have Jarvis? Besides, it's a bit hard to fit a cellphone under the suit, and it's rare that the suit gets damaged badly enough to lose communication functions, even beat up as it currently is—lets him listen to the tone of the ended call for a few seconds, and then obligingly ends the call on his end.

Finally, Loki turns back towards him, either because the sun's finished setting or Tony's finished his call. “If you're quite done?” Loki asks, looking as bored of Tony's interactions with his teammates as he ever does. He steps towards Tony, movements lithe but not threatening.

“I'm done,” Tony confirms. Loki steps closer, and Tony says, “Look, is there any way to have this whole teleportation thing not feel like I'm halfway dying? Because, fascinating as the mechanics of that might be in theory, in practice they kind of feel like—”

Suddenly, one quick movement puts Loki well within Tony's space, one hand resting lightly on the metallic curve of the suit's arm plate where it lies over Tony's skin. “Stark,” he says, and for a second Tony thinks, stupidly—but no, Loki continues, slightly smirk curving his lips, “as ever, you talk too much.”

Then, equally as suddenly, green light swallows up Tony's world—and, like the asshole he is, Loki teleports them away without giving Tony time to either respond or brace himself. As ways of getting Tony to shut up go, Tony has to give that one credit for creativity, but not for much else.

Teleportation still sucks the second time around, just for the record.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is coming up late because my day has been insane, for reasons I won't get into. Actually, Wednesdays in general have been insane, once I got into the second half of this semester. I'm considering changing my update day on this story to Thursdays, if no one has any great objections.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy.

The first thing Tony says, when he finds himself back in the tower, is, “Oh, fuck you, Loki.” It's maybe not the most auspicious start to the conversation to come, especially not when Tony's got the distinct feeling the other Avengers are clustered around him, probably in full battle gear. Tony can't exactly look up to check, not with the after-effects of the teleportation making him want to curl up in a ball and stop breathing; the same after-effects, he'd like to mention, that inspired the cursing in the first place. Seriously, you can't just spring teleportation on somebody, that's officially not okay in Tony's book.

“Tony,” Cap says, and Tony knows that tone, that's the tone Cap pulls out on battlefields when one of the Avengers is down, and a villain's about to have some very oddly shaped bruises in retribution. On the one hand, Tony's glad to know he still merits that sort of concern. On the other, the point here is to not have Loki take Cap's shield to the face, and Cap's tone suggests that's coming up shortly.

Tony finds the energy to hold up one hand and all but wheeze out, “No, I'm fine.” He suspects that he's convincing absolutely nobody, but at least it's been said. 

Thankfully—or maybe not so much, actually—Loki backs him up. “Stark is unharmed,” he says, tone completely uninterested. Apparently no one ever gave Loki the talk on how to avoid attention when surrounded by five enemies—former enemies? Tony's not sure where they're going to fall on the whole Loki issue—and one completely immobile ally. Then again, Loki in general has never been very big on being inconspicuous, and he is after all public enemy number one inside this building. It was probably a ridiculous bit of optimism for Tony to expect that he would be able to do the talking for them, without Loki having to interact much at all.

“Brother,” Thor's voice says, and there's the sound of movement.

Tony can't actually look up to check what just happened, but the way Loki, a moment later, all but spits out, “Do not think to touch me, Thor,” gives him a pretty good hint. Ouch. He can almost feel Thor's hurt expression from here, and it isn't even directed at him. “I am no brother of yours,” Loki continues, tone coldly factual, and Tony can't tell if Loki's trying to hurt Thor or to remind himself. “Nor am I here for you. Keep your distance.” Is it just Tony, or has the awkwardness level in this room become nearly unbearable all of a sudden? Then Loki asks, “Stark?” in a tone that suggests Tony has about three seconds to get upright before Loki starts attacking out of sheer irritation.

That gives Tony the bit of extra motivation he needs to drag himself up to stand fully, and meet the other Avengers' eyes. “Yes, yes, sorry. Teleportation isn't exactly a skip in the park, is all. Please nobody shoot Loki.” He's extremely tempted to add 'or hug him', but frankly that would be unkind to Thor and unappreciated by Loki, so he leaves it off. 

“So,” Clint says, dragging the 'o' out into a drawl, “can we talk about when that became a priority for you?” Tony turns slightly to look at Clint full on, and can't help noticing that Clint's hand is poised in mid-air, about a split second away from fully drawing his bow. Worse, his hand is perfectly still—assassin still, the kind Clint gets before he makes improbably accurate shots from extremely long distances. Maybe Clint isn't entirely over the whole hatred of Loki thing after all.

“Yes,” Tony says, and holds his hands up flat in the universal sign for 'Look, Ma, no weapons!' “Yes, we can absolutely talk about that, we're going to talk about that, I am going to explain. That is actually what I came back for.” Nervous babbling may not be dignified, but it's something his teammates are familiar with where Tony's concerned, and right now familiar is probably good; when Tony has the urge to let his mouth run on, he just does it. “First, though,” Tony says, and hopes this isn't a sticking point, “Loki actually does have somewhere else to be.”

Natasha raises one eyebrow at that, and says, “There are standing orders from SHIELD to bring him in, Stark.” Tony's not sure what to make of that. If Natasha really cared about bringing Loki in, Loki would already be pinned to the ground under her while Natasha looked totally unconcerned about the effort required to pin down a god. Yet, Natasha isn't really the type to say something just to have it said. 

Still, Tony responds as if she means it seriously, just in case. “If he was leaving to do something villainous, I'd be entirely in favor of the capture plan,” Tony says. It's at least seventy percent a lie, but it needs to be said. “As it stands, though, he needs to go help me save the world. So. In this case, I wouldn't say bringing him in to SHIELD is the right thing to do.”

Clint snorts, inelegantly and loudly. “Did you forget who you're talking about, Stark?” 

“You're lacking critical evidence, Barton,” Tony fires back. “I'm not saying Loki's suddenly realized his destiny is to rescue kittens from trees, okay? Hear me out.”

Tony didn't realize he'd been largely ignoring Loki until Loki says, “Stark. As fascinating as it might be to linger here and be quarreled over, I should be going. The task before me is not an easy one.”

Tony turns to look at Loki—it is extremely uncomfortable to actually be circled by people, for the record, and it also makes it really difficult to look at them all at once—and offers a slight grin. “True,” he says, and, okay, maybe he shouldn't be so amused by the idea of Loki playing suitor. It is his own plan, after all. “Remember to be charming.”

“Your implication that I am ever anything else wounds me,” Loki says, his facial expression sincere enough that it nearly cracks Tony up. Then that expression noticeably cools, past neutrality into faint distaste, when Loki looks away from Tony to take in the other Avengers. “If you are all quite done squabbling over me, I'll take my leave.” It isn't, technically, a concession to the judgment of the Avengers—Tony doesn't doubt that if they say no, Loki's going to get the hell out of dodge anyway. It does, however, look like a concession. Tony definitely appreciates Loki even giving the appearance of cooperation; it's more than he thought he'd be getting.

Tony looks to Cap, both because Steve is his team leader and thus the decision is technically his, and also because he feels like he's been pushing Cap's tolerance for disobedience lately. Well. He is Tony Stark, some disobedience comes with the package—maybe he should say he's been pushing Cap's tolerance, even where Tony's concerned. “Cap?” he asks.

Steve just looks hard at Tony and asks, “Is this important, Tony?”

Tony lets seriousness bleed into his facial expression, draining away the grin he'd been turning on Loki. It's rare, that Tony lets himself acknowledge the seriousness of a situation outwardly—he thinks Thanos qualifies for an exception. “It could save this world,” Tony says, “and every other one.”

Steve clearly assesses the relative honesty of Tony's statement for a moment, and then nods. “Alright,” he says, and doesn't look away from Tony. “Loki can go.”

“Cap—,” Clint says, tone audibly disapproving, but a look from Steve shuts him up.

Tony looks to Loki, suddenly struck with the realization that he has no idea what to say now. What the hell is an acceptable goodbye to an ally of all of a day, who previous to that was an enemy of several months and a neutral irritant for a month? “Don't forget to write,” is what Tony's mouth finally settles on, disregarding his brain entirely.

The corner of one side of Loki's mouth twitches faintly, as if he noticed Tony's predicament and is amused by it but unwilling to show that amusement. “Good luck,” Loki says in return. “If all goes well, you will hear from me within the week.”

Then Loki raises one hand, rather dramatically if Tony does say so himself, and green magic billows from his fingertips. In a flash of green light and sparks, Loki vanishes. Vain bastard.

This, of course, means that Tony has no excuse to not give the explanation he promised. It's not that he doesn't have an explanation to give, obviously, but nevertheless, the idea of giving it is a bit daunting. Tony reacts to that the same way he always does. “So,” he says, spinning around to face his team fully, “do you guys want the cliffnotes version here, or what?”

“I want the truth,” Steve says, which wouldn't actually stop Tony from being an asshole coming from anyone else, but—well. This is Cap, who is Tony's team leader and his friend and one of the very few people on the planet he genuinely respects. So there goes that plan.

“Okay,” Tony says, and starts talking. He tells it from the beginning—the beginning for him, not for Loki, which he's not quite over realizing are two radically different points—with his first confrontation with Loki in the SHIELD jail cell. From there he tells them about the jaunt in Central Park, and notes that Natasha looks completely unsurprised to hear that Tony lied to her. He tells them about the start of his deal with Loki, the way he entered into the deal on the off chance it was genuine, and found himself a lot more invested when he figured out what the staff was capable of. He skims over the month that went without contact between him and Loki, since they already know most everything that happened then, and goes straight to the events of today, from the conversation with the Chitauri to the far more revealing conversation with Loki. The only thing he leaves out is the revelation that Loki manipulated him into just about everything—it doesn't exactly foster the kind of confidence he's looking for, and besides, Tony still isn't entirely sure what to make of that.

By the time he's finished, it's nearly midnight, and he and the other Avengers have long since migrated to sit around the kitchen table. Tony finishes imparting them with the story about Thanos, and the basics of his and Loki's plan, and then leans forward on his hands. “And that's everything,” he says, finally, his throat dry as hell from all this talking. Tony thinks he's talked more in this one day than in the whole week before that combined. “The whole sordid tale. Sorry I didn't tell it earlier.”

“So,” Bruce says, slowly, when Tony's finished, “I just want to make sure I understand this. You want us to trust Loki because you've had a few important conversations with him, and he hasn't tried to kill you in the last month?”

“No,” Tony says, immediately. “No, I don't want you to trust Loki at all. Loki's been pretty clear about the fact that this little alliance only fits two. I think he understands that if he actively tries to kill any of you, our deal is off, but that doesn't mean you should trust him. All I want you to do is trust me. Trust that I'm smart enough to know what I'm doing here.”

“But you trust him, based on just those few meetings,” Bruce presses, and, okay, put like that it sounds even more insane than it probably is.

“Sometimes you just know?” Tony tries, half a joke and half the truth. He can't for the life of him explain why he trusts Loki at all, point blank, when the rational thing to do would be to run for his life where Loki's concerned. He can't explain when it started. Just the fact that Loki hasn't tried to kill him in a while, and that he kind of finds the god of lies amusing when it comes down to it, isn't really enough of a foundation to build trust on, for any sane person. The thing is, very few people have ever accused Tony Stark of being sane. Maybe it doesn't make sense to trust Loki—but Tony does, and that's the end of it where he's concerned. “If you're asking whether I'm being mind controlled or manipulated or coerced, all of those answers are no. If you want me to explain it? That I can't do.”

“Have you considered the possibility that Loki's lying about all of this?” Natasha asks, her tone unrevealing.

“Yes,” Tony says, straight away. What? He's not an idiot. “When it comes down to it, though, this is a little convoluted even for Loki, and I don't see what good it would do him. There's no punchline coming on this one. Loki has to know that there's no situation here where lying to me about all this puts him out ahead.”

“It gets him your loyalty,” Natasha points out.

“Conditionally,” Tony returns. He and Loki didn't exactly braid each other's hair and promise to be best friends forever and ever—they're in an alliance, with a specific purpose, and a little underlying trust. The second that Loki backstabs Tony in any way, all that goes away. He's realistic about that. 

“Is there any way Loki would benefit from having Thanos dead?” Bruce asks, and Tony's about to answer when Thor cuts in.

“Only as much as any creature of the nine worlds would benefit,” Thor says, voice solemn in the way it only gets on very rare occasions. Tony believed Loki on this one, he really did, but it's still nice to have confirmation from the other resident non-Midgardian. “I know of Thanos by name, though I have seen him only once, and that from a distance. The mad titan is truly a danger to anything he sets his mind against.”

“Which,” Tony points out, “in this case, is Earth.”

Cap, who's been silent to this point, asks, “How sure are you your plan will work?” Tactics first, lecture later, then. Tony really isn't looking forward to bearing the brunt of Steve's disappointment again.

Tony runs the math in his head—and by runs the math, in this case, he means extrapolates wildly. “Maybe forty-five percent sure,” he says. Just the fact that he's admitting fallibility says a lot. “It's better than nothing, though. Especially when the other option is sitting on our asses and waiting for Thanos to come back with his army.” Tony hopes his tone fully gets across how much that isn't an option.

“Well,” Clint says, and stands from his chair, stretching his arms over his head. “Your plan sucks, Tony, but at least it lets me picture Loki standing outside Death's window with a boombox over his head.”

“I live to amuse you,” Tony says.

More seriously, Clint says, “Even if Loki changes his mind about us, I'm not going to trust him.”

Tony smiles, a little self-deprecatingly. “Yeah, well. That's probably a good idea.” Trusting Loki, after all, has gotten Tony here—wearing a half-wrecked Iron Man suit, tired as hell, with his throat burning from trying to explain himself, his teammates giving him looks like they're reassessing his sanity, and that's not even mentioning the whole mess with Thanos he's now an active player in. Life's probably less complicated for those who don't trust gods of lies.

Steve seems to catch Tony's tiredness, as he says, “It's late. We can pick this back up tomorrow, if anyone has any other questions.” Tony smiles at Steve, his thanks-for-being-a-decent-human-being smile. Come to think of it, there's a serious lack of fundamentally decent human beings in Tony's life. Maybe he should get on that. 

Natasha rises to stand next to Clint, and is the first to leave the kitchen, trailing one hand over Clint's arm as she goes. Tony's not sure what that touch was supposed to be, some sort of 'don't worry, if Loki steps out of line you get to shoot him first' comfort or something sexual—he can never tell with those two. Whatever it is, it has Clint turn around and follow after her without a word, which Tony absolutely wasn't expecting.

Bruce follows after, not before giving Tony a long look that Tony knows means they'll be talking this over later, and then Cap goes, without so much as a backward glance at Tony. Right. So Cap's pissed again.

Finally, it's just Thor and Tony in the kitchen, and Thor is showing no sign of leaving. Tony gets up and walks to the coffee machine—what, just because he's exhausted doesn't mean he's planning to sleep anytime soon. The suit needs enough repairing that he'll probably be up all night, and if he decides to scrap this suit and build the next version, he's probably going to be awake for the next few days straight. He'll sleep when he's dead. 

“Can I help you, buddy?” he asks Thor, as he finishes setting up the machine. If Thor's sticking around, he probably has something to say—though, given how quiet he was after Tony finished telling his story, exempting that one Thanos-related outburst, Tony doesn't have the faintest clue what that might be.

“Yes,” Thor says, and his voice is still carrying all of that seriousness from before. “I wish to speak to you of my brother.”

This, Tony instinctively feels, is a conversation that's going to require eye contact. He turns, trusting the coffee machine not to overflow or set the kitchen aflame just because he isn't looking at it, and looks at Thor. “Go for it,” he says, because why not. After the kind of day Tony's had, it really can't get much worse.

Then Thor says, “Be careful with him,” and Tony revises his previous estimate.

“Oh god,” he says, reflexively. “Am I about to get the shovel talk? Is that what this is? Because I should probably mention ahead of time that Loki and I aren't involved—pretty as your brother might be, I have this rule about not sleeping with people who might knife me in the back at random moments.” Of course, Tony realizes as he's saying it, Loki doesn't really break that rule anymore. Which isn't enough to make him and Loki anything approaching a good idea, but—no, actually, Tony isn't thinking about that. Tony's going to focus on making sure Thor isn't thinking about that. “Besides, even if we were, I think Loki is about the last person in the galaxy who'd need that talk. He's perfectly capable of tearing out my heart all on his own, and besides—”

Tony trails off at the confused look on Thor's face, backtracks, and realizes his own mistake. “Well,” he says, “I just made this extremely awkward, didn't I?”

Thor says, slowly, “I meant only to warn you of how rarely Loki gives his trust. I had no intention of giving you the...the shovel talk you spoke of.” Right. Okay. Tony is locking himself up inside his lab and not interacting with living beings for at least three days. Clearly he isn't capable of normal social function right now. He's blaming Loki for this—antisocial bastard is clearly rubbing off on him. Um. Not that that image makes this conversation appreciably better. God, sometimes Tony hates his brain.

“Tony,” Thor says, still speaking slower than normal, “need I speak with you about that, as well?”

Tony raises his hands in a clear gesture of surrender. “No,” he says, “no, I'm good. Actually, can we pretend the last five minutes never happened? And never speak of them again, thanks, that would be great.”

Thor just looks at Tony for a long moment, and Tony appreciates the fact that Thor would actually give a deeply frightening shovel talk. Then, finally, Thor says, “Very well.”

Fortuitously for Tony, the coffee machine chooses that moment to beep out the note that means it's finished brewing. “Well, would you look at that,” Tony says, and grabs the carafe of coffee and his mug both. “Sorry to bail on you, big guy, but I've got a lot to do and not much time to do it, so...yeah. I'm going now.”

He doesn't actually run for his lab, but it's a close call.

Shit. Well. Add another thing to the truly vast list of 'Things Tony Stark isn't Thinking About', then.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes for this chapter, specifically: Tony's thoughts in this chapter are in no way meant to irritate Cap/Tony shippers, especially considering that when I'm not shipping Frostiron like burning, Steve/Tony is another favorite of mine. Sometimes Tony's thoughts just sort of happen. Also, Pepper has been seriously missing from this fic, and I love Pepper, so that's been corrected as of now.
> 
> That all said, enjoy.

The week after the confrontation with the Chitauri, the start of Tony's alliance with Loki, and all the insanity that that entailed, is actually surprisingly quiet. Well. Tony says surprising, and really means that the universe just likes to give him a sense of false security between hitting him with everything it has, but it's essentially the same thing in practice.

There's no sign of any more Chitauri over New York, or anywhere else for that matter. Loki's still off on his wooing adventure, and Tony's taking the lack of contact to mean it's going well so far. Dr. Doom and the Mandarin both choose to take a week to do whatever supervillains do when they're on vacation—Tony's guessing practice their evil laughs, or sit on their bathroom floors crying because they can't be Tony Stark, because really, who wouldn't? No new aspiring supervillains with strange names try to take over New York City or rob any banks. The most eventful thing that happens for the Avengers is a brief media buzz that happens over a couple getting married dressed as Iron (Wo)Man and Captain America. Which, okay, Tony will admit is a little strange to think of, given that he's fairly certain any relationship between him and Steve would be more likely to wind up in a funeral than a wedding; still, though, the general trend of questions he gets asked on the matter make Tony think that people are expecting him to freak out over the fact that the bride rather than the groom was the one dressed up as him, and fuck that very much. Tony is confident enough in his masculinity to just be amused—and, besides, her Iron Woman suit was actually pretty rocking.

Anyway. Point being, Tony gets a week's respite from the craziness that is generally his life. And, weirdly enough, he spends the majority of it doing what he's pretty sure are the right things to do.

…

The first day of that week, Tony sleeps in late enough that Steve, when he sees Tony coming into the kitchen for coffee, raises an eyebrow and says, “I almost thought you were going to sleep straight through to tomorrow.”

Tony raises an eyebrow right back, and says, “Normal sleep schedules are for the weak,” seriously enough that Steve grins at him. “Did you miss my sunny face first thing in the morning?”

“Tony,” Steve says, “the only times I see you early in the morning are when you haven't managed to go to bed yet. Usually by then you're covered in enough grease that I can't even see most of your face.” Steve's still smiling, and his tone is gently teasing, and Tony—well. If Tony was big on emotional honesty, he'd take a second to think about exactly how much he doesn't deserve the faith Steve has in him. Seriously. No other team leader in the world would go from doubting Tony's loyalty one night to teasing him the next—not that Tony thinks he's completely forgiven here, but still. Steve. Steve is kind of an impossibly good person.

Good thing Tony isn't that big on emotional honesty; he doesn't actually let himself have that moment. It could have gotten soppy there, otherwise.

“I make grease work,” Tony says, idly, more concerned with his coffee than with what he's saying. “Actually, though, speaking of spending too much time in labs, is Bruce in his?” If Cap doesn't know, Tony can always ask Jarvis—can't hurt to ask Steve first, though.

“He was an hour ago,” Steve says. 

“Good enough,” Tony says, and gestures at the door with his coffee mug, fortunately managing not to spill any. “I have something to run past him, so I should probably just—”

“Tony,” Steve says, tone still softer than his full Cap voice, and Tony stops turning away with a sigh. He's actually fairly resigned to having this talk, but the fact is that he does, in fact, have something he needs to talk to Bruce about. This is maybe not the best time Steve could have picked to continue their conversation from the night before.

Fortunately, the Steve-is-a-ridiculously-good-person factor comes into play, and Steve just says, “Eventually, we need to have another talk about you keeping me posted when you go off plan.”

“Absolutely,” Tony says, maybe a little too fervently. “Eventually, we should absolutely have that talk. Right now, though...,” Tony trails off, gesturing again at the door.

Steve just laughs, slightly, and says, “Tell Bruce we ordered in earlier, and there's take-out in the fridge if he wants to leave his lab.”

“Will do,” Tony says, and pointedly doesn't think about how familial that sounds, considering the word 'family' all but gives Tony hives. Right. Bruce.

…

Bruce is in the middle of writing out a complex equation on a white board when Tony finds him in his lab. Tony takes a second to scan the math, because the variables don't look much like Bruce's usual work, and then grins when he realizes what Bruce is working on. “Procrastinating?” he asks, quickly parsing out what Bruce has managed to get done. As usual, Bruce's math is elegant, and a pleasure to look over—still, even Bruce won't be solving this one any time soon.

Bruce looks up at Tony briefly, and his lips curve up in a small smile. “What tipped you off?” he asks, and goes back to playing with one of the Millenium Prize Problems. Trying to solve unsolveable problems is essentially Bruce's version of watching kitten videos on youtube; Tony's never particularly gotten why Bruce, who lives with the eternal anxiety of turning into the Hulk unplanned, would deliberately pit himself against the impossible, but Bruce says he finds it calming. Whatever. To each their own.

“I guess I found you at a good time, then,” Tony says, and his tone clearly catches Bruce's interest, as Bruce puts his marker down and looks at Tony properly. “If you're in the mood to try doing the impossible, I've got something else you can help me on.”

Bruce pushes his glasses back up his nose slightly, and says, “I'm listening.”

“I need to find a way to kill a god, in a month or less,” Tony says. Yes, alright, it isn't exactly Bruce's typical subject area—then again, it isn't Tony's either, or, as far as Tony knows, anyone else's. As it stands, Bruce is the smartest human being Tony knows other than himself. It can't hurt, to have Bruce helping him out, especially given that sporadic contact with Loki will mean they basically have to come up with a solution individually or not at all.

Bruce looks equal parts thoughtful and wary. “To clarify: Loki, or the other one?”

“Not Loki,” Tony says, and meets Bruce's searching glance with a faint, rueful smile. “Yes, Bruce, I really am trying to work with the god of lies, this is not a drill.”

Bruce looks at Tony for another long moment, and then just says, quietly, “Alright.” Yet another reason why Bruce Banner will eternally be Tony's favorite. Seriously. “Well. This will be different.” He looks up at his white board and says, “I should probably find a clean board for this, shouldn't I?”

“Please,” Tony says, because while it's quaint that Bruce is a white boards kind of guy, they do actually live in Stark Tower, and Tony's not exactly a slouch on technology. “Jarvis, we're going to need a full recording of this, a couple of screens running visuals, and maybe a couple of models run later if we come across something promising.”

“Of course, sir,” Jarvis says, and, seriously, what did Tony build a state of the art AI for if everyone he likes is just going to forget Jarvis exists all the time? 

“Right,” Bruce says, and Tony grins. For all that he'd rather not be working on this specific topic, at all, ever, he really, really likes working with Bruce. Getting the chance to figure that out was possibly the only good part of the debacle of Loki's invasion.

“Right,” Tony echoes, and claps his hands together, and then they're off.

…

“Barton,” Tony says, a few days later. 

Clint stops, turns to face Tony, and asks, “Stark?” There's no sign in either his expression or his posture that Clint's opinion of Tony has changed in any way—but, well, Tony knows he left this talk too long. He got a little lost in Bruce's lab, and then in being beaten into the floor by Natasha as part of sparring training, and put off a conversation he should have had earlier.

“I've got a job for you,” Tony says, and at the faint skepticism that crosses Clint's face, says, “you're going to want to do it.”

“What is it?” Clint asks, and something in his expression makes Tony very aware that they're standing in a hallway, with no privacy whatsoever. None of the other Avengers are nearby, though, and that's good enough for this talk.

“So,” Tony says, stalling for a moment before he comes to the conclusion that there's no good way to say this, and just barrels on. “I want you to promise that you'll take me down, if you think I'm a danger to the others.”

Clint's eyebrows shoot up, and he says, “What?”

Tony shrugs, a bit ruefully. “I'm allies with a Norse god of mischief, and planning to enrage a second, even crazier god into attacking me in the faint hopes that I can kill him. I'm not expecting to fail,” and Tony grins, a little arrogantly, as he says that, because it's faster than actually saying 'because I'm Tony Stark, a genius, and I always play to win', “but the odds are there. Somehow I've got the strange feeling that if this does go sideways, I'm going to be completely fucked. Possibly even mind-control fucked, considering who I'm dealing with.”

“You want me to kill you, if Loki betrays you?” Clint asks, his expression gone flat.

Tony winces. “I was hoping you'd try blunt head trauma first, I hear that works wonders—but, yes, essentially. If Loki betrays me, or Thanos wins, or, hell, if Death decides to make me her mind-slave, apparently my life has become the sort of strange place where that might even be remotely possible.” Tony looks at Clint, to make sure this is getting across, and says, “I spend enormous amounts of my time working to make myself and my suit more dangerous. That could become a problem, if things go wrong here.”

“Why not Natasha?” Clint asks, and his tone finally gives Tony something: apparently, Natasha is the more deadly of the two. He'd thought so, but he wasn't entirely sure—it's a little difficult to pit an archer and a hand-to-hand specialist against each other, and Natasha might be an expert marksman but guns are also a very different sort of weapon than bows and arrows. The way Clint asks the question, though, gives Tony the distinct impression that Clint thinks Natasha would stand a better chance of taking a mind-controlled Tony down, and that's always something worth knowing.

Tony does, however, have very good reasons for his choice. Bluntly, he says, “You've been there. You've got the best shot of telling whether I'm recoverable or not.”

“And if not?” Clint asks, and he and Tony stand in silence for a long, long moment, neither breaking eye contact. “Right,” Clint says, after that moment's over, and Tony's glad to be understood without directly having to articulate that one.

“Yeah,” he says, and then feels the need to add, “but, seriously, keep that as a last resort? I like living.”

Finally, the charged feeling of the conversation breaks, and Clint grins at him, genuinely, for maybe the first time since Tony explained his plan to them all. “You kidding, Stark?” he asks, voice warm again. “I've been waiting for a good excuse to shoot you since about thirty seconds after the first time we spoke. I'm living the dream, here.”

…

On the last day of the week, he sends Pepper flowers, and she calls him about two hours later, opening the conversation with, “Tony, are you dying, or have you killed someone?” Unsurprisingly, her tone isn't the panicked one most people would ask that question with, but rather calm efficiency—whether Tony's dying or someone else is dead, that tone implies, Pepper is going to fix it first and yell at Tony after. Paradoxically, of course, it's that tone that first tips Tony off that she's worried; she'd just sound exasperated with him, if she wasn't.

Tony, who was in the middle of designing the newest model of the Iron Man suit when he answered the call, says, “Pep, really? I can't send you flowers just because I want to anymore? I'm hurt.”

“You've never sent me flowers just because you wanted to,” Pepper says, but her voice is noticeably calmer now. 

“I've sent you plenty of flowers before,” Tony says, because, seriously, his credit card bills will back him up. 

Pepper laughs over the line, and, alright, they've been broken up for long enough now that Tony doesn't miss her wildly just because he hears her laugh, that's a landmark that they've passed. Now he's apparently worked down to mild nostalgia and more fondness than he knows how to deal with. Alright. Maybe he and Pepper can be friends again without Tony being an unbearable dick, then. “I've sent myself flowers on your behalf before,” Pepper corrects him, and there's the mild exasperation Tony was waiting for, “or you've sent flowers when you think you've done something like nearly ruin the company again. You've never been a casual flowers kind of guy.”

“I can't nearly ruin the company anymore,” Tony points out, because making Pepper CEO of Stark Industries was the one smart thing he did when he was in the middle of dying of palladium poisoning. Pepper says something sotto voce that sounds a lot like 'thank god', and Tony laughs despite himself. “I heard that, Pepper,” he says, “seriously, you wound me with your doubt.”

Pepper laughs, and then for a moment there's silence. At the end of it, Pepper says, a little more softly than before, “Why did you send me flowers, Tony?”

And Tony—well. Tony may not be very big on emotional honesty, but Pepper's always been worth trying for. “I thought we could be friends again,” Tony says, and it comes out sounding too honest and badly covered up with faux-casualness.

He can tell Pepper's smiling over the phone when she talks next, even if he can't see her. “I think I'd like that,” she says, and that, more than the moment where she told him she couldn't be with him anymore, actually feels like an end to something. 

Half an hour later, she lets him off the phone with a warm, “I missed you too, Tony,” as her goodbye, and, yeah. Like Tony said. He spends one week where he actually gets things right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you got this far and enjoyed, please drop me a comment. I love hearing from you guys. *grins*
> 
> As a side note, because it amused me: due to a mistype, this chapter is saved on my computer under the document title of 'Don't Want Your Monet, 12.' 
> 
> Next chapter will be out next Thursday, probably at about this same time or earlier.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is being uploaded at midnight where I am, making this technically a Friday update. Sorry. This strange update hour is being brought to you by the sheer suckiness that is registering for classes at college, and also by a celebration. 
> 
> I initially meant for this to be both longer and plottier, but then I was in a very good mood due to the celebration part of my life right now, and Tony and Loki decided they instead wanted to spend about two pages flirting. Somehow, I feel you guys might not mind the decision not to go plotty. *grins*
> 
> Enjoy.

When Loki finally deigns to reappear, of course, he does it in the way most likely to give Tony a heart attack. Frankly, Tony intellectually isn't very surprised by that fact.

That, though, doesn't stop Tony from flinching hard enough he almost jumps, and spinning around with a blow torch still ignited in one hand, when Loki suddenly starts talking. In Tony's defense, he probably would have been far less likely to do so had he not been, for one thing, completely absorbed in working on the suit, and, for another, absolutely convinced he was alone not only in his workshop but in the entire tower. One second there's dead silence, and Tony's completely caught up in his work, and the next Loki's voice is rumbling out, “Fascinating,” and throwing Tony's nervous system into a spasm. Complete with blowtorches. Tony Stark doesn't half-ass anything, apparently.

Fortunately, Loki just weaves gracefully around the flame of the blowtorch, managing to make it look like he'd been planning to move anyway, and Tony and his blowtorch were only kind enough to give him the impetus. “Anxious, Stark?” Loki asks, grin one part mischief and one part mockery. For once, the expression is almost totally free of the sharp edges Tony is so accustomed to—he's going to make an educated guess here and say that their plan is going well, then.

Tony, because his fondness for proper equipment safety is actually stronger than his urge to keep menacing the god of lies with a blowtouch, turns off all his equipment and sets it down before he actually bothers to reply. “Maybe next time go with my name first,” he says, meeting Loki's eyes. “Instead of, you know, unexplained adjectives.”

Loki steps closer to Tony in a way that even Tony, with his genius level IQ, can't come up with a better word for than a prowl. “Stark,” Loki says, and then steps around Tony neatly to stand next to the table Tony was working on top of. Spread out across the surface of the table is the newest mechanism Tony's come up with for his suit's palm repulsors, still in component parts. Loki reaches out his hand and runs his palm along the length of the metal, not quite touching; and, okay, Tony is self-aware enough to realize that he finds it hot, the way Loki looks at the parts like he understands perfectly how they would come together. “I should have thought you of all people would appreciate the compliment to your work.”

“Me of all people?” Tony can't help but ask, one eyebrow raising.

Loki's grin widens. “Of course,” he says, and turns back to face Tony fully. “One can scarce hear of you without hearing of the size of your ego.” His voice drops just slightly lower on that last word, and, okay, Loki could have been talking about coloring books and that tone still would have made it sound suggestive. Tony isn't sure whether that's just residual from Loki's particular portion of their plan, or—well, fuck. There's the possibility that Loki's genuinely flirting with him, and Tony ins't sure what to think of that, or why the hell it's happening now.

And, alright, Loki is...Loki. He's a bundle of neat angles and green eyes and the smell of leather and frost all wrapped up in a thick layer of crazy, Tony really shouldn't have to explain the fact that the guy is absurdly hot. He also shouldn't have to explain the fact that anyone who is best explained by metaphors involving bags of cats is probably not the best choice to get involved with. Tony's made shitty choices about who to sleep with before, he will make shitty choices again in the future, and he's still pretty sure Loki would make the top five of Tony's worst decisions.

So instead of taking the obvious line there, Tony just says, “Somebody's in a good mood.”

Loki's grin doesn't dim. “Quite,” he says, and dips into a low bow, hands dancing through the air to give the gesture extra flourish. When he straightens up, his expression has rearranged itself to perfect seriousness, as if his grin were never there. Voice equally focused, Loki says, “You see before you a man who has gained himself a proper introduction to the Lady Death.” A moment later, he drops the pretense of somberness, his mouth curling back up into a small grin.

“I thought you were already introduced,” Tony says, and then decides, what the hell, Loki was clearly watching Tony work before this conversation started, and pulls up the plans for his latest Iron Man model. Loki can deal with having only half Tony's attention—it's better than most of the world gets from Tony at the best of times—and, okay, maybe showing an enemy the plans to your strongest weapon isn't the best idea, but Loki's an ally now, and Tony can always start over new if that changes. 

“Only informally,” Loki says, and the openness of the expression briefly shutters closed, the same way it did when Loki first described Death. So Loki's still perturbed by Death, regardless of what's going on—Tony is getting seriously curious about exactly what is so off with Lady Death, now. “A formal courtship cannot be predicated on informalities.” His tone is matter-of-fact, as if Tony should have already known that somehow.

Tony grins, and rotates the diagram in front of him. “I wouldn't know,” he says, and spreads his fingers to make the diagram change to an exploded view. The way Loki watches, intently and unblinkingly, makes Tony's grin widen a little involuntarily. So Loki might have had a point about Tony's ego, so what. “I don't usually sleep with gods.”

“Usually?” Loki asks, and Tony has one of those moments where his brain suddenly decides to remind him of exactly how close he's standing to Loki, of the expression in Loki's eyes.

“I like to keep my options open,” Tony says, because, alright, fuck, sleeping with Loki would be a terrible idea, but it would also probably be fun as hell, and it isn't in Tony's nature to back down.

For a second, Loki's expression visibly flickers, running through a convoluted set of miniscule changes that Tony actually can't parse. Then the god's expression sets back into a grin—but not the open, victorious grin of before, or even the smaller, genuine looking one Tony's seen on very rare occasions. Tony's getting good enough at reading Loki's expressions by now that he's going to guess this one isn't genuine, and he has absolutely no idea what the hell just happened. “Indeed,” Loki says, tone completely unreadable.

Instinct makes Tony deflect from whatever just derailed their conversation, back to a safer topic. “How does somebody get an introduction to Death these days, anyway?” Tony asks, making sure his tone is light.

“Nepotism,” Loki says, easily. Tony raises one eyebrow, hoping that conveys his complete doubt that anyone on Asgard would help Loki now without actually making him say it—he gets the feeling Loki wouldn't take that statement kindly, even coming from his only ally in the universe at large. Apparently Tony hasn't lost his touch, as Loki says, “My daughter is a colleague, of sorts, to Mistress Death.”

Tony's eyebrows shoot up, because he's read his mythology, sure, but he wouldn't have called that one. Loki just doesn't really strike Tony as the paternal type. “Hel?” he asks, because, again, he's read his mythology.

Maybe Loki was going to answer, and maybe he wasn't. Tony doesn't get a chance to know, because Jarvis chooses that moment to announce, “Sir, the Avengers have returned to the tower.”

Tony looks away from Loki to the door of his workshop for just a moment, automatically, and then looks back, a snide comment about the benefits of announcing entrances already on his lips. By the time he turns his eyes back to where Loki was a moment before, Loki is there no longer, and only a curl of fading green magic remains to mark his passage.

“Great,” Tony says, to no one. “So he's taking that the-Avengers-are-not-my-allies thing seriously. That's absolutely helpful.” He rubs one hand through his hair, breathes out through his nose, and says, “Jarvis? How would you feel about some wild extrapolation involving mythology? It's probably about time I figure out what the hell I'm getting myself into.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed. If you got this far, feel free to leave me a comment. I love hearing from you guys.
> 
> Again, as a reminder, after this update I'm going on hiatus for two (or possibly three, because I realized that I made a stupid counting error and my last final is actually on May 10th) weeks for my finals. I'll be back after my semester's over, and then there will be regular updates for the rest of my months off.
> 
> See you again on my summer break, guys. I wish you all the best for the two (or possibly three) weeks I'm going to be on hiatus.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again, everyone. Be forewarned, this is going to be kind of a long author's note.
> 
> First of all, anyone who hasn't seen the lovely work elvoret did based on a quote from chapter one of this story should pause and check that out, because it is gorgeous and wonderful and all her work deserves attention. You can find that here: http://obscyr.tumblr.com/post/43678828660/seven-devils-by-skoll-even-now-loki-says
> 
> Secondly, if anyone else ever feels the urge to base something on a story of mine, please feel free, but please tell me once you've done it. That way I can tell other readers about it so other people share my incoherent glee over it. *grins*
> 
> Third, this is the approximate update time I'll be able to keep constant on Thursdays over the course of the summer, as I've a course for the whole summer that lets out at about ten. If anyone would prefer some other update time for any reason, I'm amenable to changing the day again.
> 
> And, lastly, this chapter and the next were originally meant to be one chapter, but I split them so as to give people time to remember where this story left off before I jumped right back into important things, and also because next chapter mentions the Extremis, and I wanted to give people a week's warning about spoilers. This fic is now officially jossed (surprise surprise) and the Extremis will be the only thing that really shows up from Iron Man 3, but I liked the premise enough to steal it for this fic.
> 
> That all said, enjoy, everyone.

Tony would just like it on the record, ahead of time, that he absolutely called this one. One week of uninterrupted peace basically guaranteed that the rest of the month left to carrying out his and Loki's plan would be completely, stupidly chaotic. There's some sort of universal constant that keeps Tony from having too many nice things at once, and throwing Loki into the mix just strengthens that factor. 

Still. Expecting chaos doesn't actually make dealing with it more pleasant, it just gives Tony the opportunity to feel smug—and smugness, much as it might pain Tony to admit it, doesn't count for much in the end.

…

Just before the craziness starts, Tony's standing in front of the door to Thor's rooms, waiting for Thor to answer Tony's knocks and let him in. There's a conversation he needs to have—big surprise there, of course, considering how many conversations this whole thing has necessitated so far—and, frankly, Tony thinks it would be a disservice to Thor to have it out in the general living area the rest of the Avengers share. 

Finally, Thor's door swings open, revealing a much wetter, much less clothed version of the Norse god than Tony was expecting. Tony's not exactly going to complain about the view. “My friend,” Thor says, one blond eyebrow raising in surprise at finding Tony on his doorstep, “I did not hear you knock.” Thor stands back from the door, graciously waving Tony into his rooms; Tony takes the invitation, and nudges Thor's door shut behind him on his way in. “What can I do for you, Tony Stark?”

Tony's momentarily distracted by the fact that Thor drops his towel to start dressing—come on, Tony would dare any living thing with a pulse to not be distracted there. Even if his tastes apparently, and somewhat alarmingly, run towards the darker, more disturbed Norse god of his acquaintance, Thor's bare ass still makes for a fine sight. Just saying.

He likes to think he takes it admirably in stride, though, and gets straight to his question a moment later. “I need to talk to you about Asgard,” Tony says, and sits down in the nearest chair. Chances are, this is going to take long enough that Tony'll appreciate not standing through it. 

Thor, finally, pulls a shirt over his head, and turns to face Tony. “Ask what you will, and I will answer,” he says, obligingly, and sits facing Tony.

“Right,” Tony says, and toys with his options of where to start this conversation. “So, I'm foreseeing a couple of possible problems here, and I'd really like to have them dealt with before Thanos becomes an active issue, if at all possible.” Leaning forward, Tony ticks off each question on a finger as he says them. “How willing are your people going to be to go up against Thanos? If they are willing to fight Thanos, what are the chances they'll willingly take orders from your brother and a mortal? And, before we even get to the fighting portion, how likely is it that your brother will be, you know, stoned in the streets or whatever, just for going back to Asgard?”

They aren't exactly easy questions, and Tony sees their impact on Thor visibly as some of the thunder god's default cheerfulness fades away. “Your first question is the most easily answered,” Thor says, expression contemplative. “Long have my people known of Thanos, and of the danger he presents. Had he not dealt the first strike, perhaps there would have been hesitance—but my people will be eager to fell the mad dog, now that he has proven he will bite.”

Tony makes a small, thoughtful noise, and asks, “You're sure? Even if it was Earth he attacked, and not your own planet?” Thor has pretty explicitly named himself a protector of Earth, but Tony's not sure the same can be said of other Asgardians.

Thor meets Tony's eyes and says, very solemnly, “Once my people fought the Jotnar to a standstill, for daring to touch Midgard. It was some time ago, yes, but my people are slow to change. For all that we have not, in recent years, afforded as much respect to the people of Midgard as we ought to, ever have my people been slightly proprietary of your world. Thanos will face the same might that once was leveled against Jotunheim.” Thor's expression implies that his meaning there takes no more explanation—and though, after interacting with both Thor and Loki, Tony's becoming increasingly curious about what exactly did happen between Jotunheim and Asgard, he's willing for now to accept the fact that Asgardians are apparently violent when someone else plays in their sandbox, and move on. 

“Okay, good to know, but that still doesn't answer the question of what happens once Loki enters the equation.” From the instinctive-looking way Thor winces when the question is asked, Tony's going to go out on a limb and say he won't like this answer nearly as well.

“You must understand,” Thor says, slowly, “that Loki was ill-favored among my people long before he ever acted directly against me. Here, his magic is a strength—on Asgard, it is something which makes him less a man, in the eyes of many. That he embraced his magic, and cultivated such a skill in it, rather than casting it aside in shame, made him yet stranger to those who did not know him well.”

This is the most Tony's ever heard of Loki's childhood—even though he could have guessed a lot of that, from reading myths and observing Loki's reactions to things, he doesn't cut Thor off. Instead he just says, “It probably didn't help when he used his magic for mischief either, did it?” Knowing Loki, there's absolutely no way the god let something that useful go to waste, when he could use it to fuck with people's minds instead. 

“As you say,” Thor acknowledges, with a smile that looks a bit rueful. “Truly, most of the worst of his mischief was turned against me, and my reactions did nought but encourage my brother further. I see now, in looking back, that many of my people viewed Loki's harmless tricks as more frightening than amusing. Then, though, Loki was a prince of Asgard, and brother to their future king—and so fear, rather than being called out into the open in the usual way of my people, was instead pushed aside, until it grew into mistrust and mislike in the hearts of many.”

Tony finishes the thought. “And now Loki is neither a prince of Asgard nor your brother by blood, so he's basically stuck with all of the dislike and none of the politeness.” Tony knows he's right—he's well-acquainted with negative public attention, and he's been through all the ups and downs in public opinion that come with being a notorious playboy running a company at the top of the Fortune 500. Tony runs through the implications, and raises one hand to tap idly at the surface of the arc reactor as he thinks. “Right,” he says, “so, two new questions. Will having Loki in Asgard endanger either the plan, or Loki?”

Thor spends a moment in thought himself before he answers. “I think that I will need to go with you,” he says at last. “I am as well beloved by Asgard as Loki is mistrusted. If the orders come through me, my people will take them.”

“Loki's not really going to like that,” Tony points out. “I mean, chances are he's already realized this and resigned himself to the fact, but that doesn't mean he'll be anything short of caustic when it turns out he's right.”

Thor's expression goes bleak for a moment, and then he shrugs. Right. Thor probably would be pretty used to Loki being more than a little cruel, at this point. “My brother will be unkind regardless. At least this way, I can be of some use to you.” Tone changing radically, Thor continues, “Your concern for my well being is appreciated, Tony, as is your concern for my brother. Few, in any world, would seek to keep him safe.”

Something about the way Thor says those last few words makes Tony think there's some other meaning underlying them, and that—whatever that meaning is, wherever Thor is going with this, Tony isn't willing to follow right now. Bad enough he's recently been confronted with the fact that his attraction to Loki will, in the heat of the moment, outweigh whatever input Tony's common sense has on the matter; if Loki hadn't shut him down the last time they talked, Tony realistically would have tried to sleep with him, consequences be damned. This conversation, though, seems like it's about ten seconds away from entering some sort of emotional territory, and Tony is flat out not doing that.

“Thor,” Tony starts to say, and then, in what Tony (at the time) considers a godsend, Steve's voice interrupts, broadcast over the building's loudspeaker.

“There's a robbery happening right now at the General Reserve Bank, and the witness who called it in said the robbers had glowing red skin,” Steve says, his voice the sharp, quick tones Tony's come to associate with Captain America. “Suit up, and be prepared to deal with the Extremis. Avengers assemble.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, sorry I missed updating last week. As it turns out, doing upwards of six hours of CPR in two days is really, really bad for my dominant arm, and I'm almost completely incapable of typing solely left-handed. Thank you for your patience with the missed update, and please keep in mind that, though I may miss occasional weeks, I won't leave you guys hanging for longer than a week. This story is going to be wrapping up soon enough, and I have every intention of seeing it through. 
> 
> I'm going to come back and edit this chapter later, as I'm too tired right now to do it properly. As ever, feel free to tell me about any errors I made, and I'll be happy to fix them.
> 
> Also, this chapter contains one character who is a former soldier. The characterization of that character is in no way meant to cast a negative light on soldiers or the military overall; however, most of the Extremis users of Iron Man 3 were former soldiers, and I wanted consistency. 
> 
> That all said, enjoy.

Tony's number one issue with the Extremis—and that would be number one of an extremely long list, keep in mind—is the type of people who use it.

“You can realize this whole escaping thing is futile and give up anytime now, you know,” Tony projects, as loudly as the suit speakers will let him. Up ahead, the man Tony's chasing doesn't slow down at all, and, charmingly enough, only reacts by flipping the bird at Tony. “Seriously, I'm flying and you're running, are you not seeing the problem here?”

Theoretically, Tony could just blast the guy to the ground and go on his merry way—except, in Tony's experience, that can tend to trigger instability in new Extremis users, and this is too populated an area to handle the sort of explosion that causes. He's got no way of knowing how close the guy is to going human bomb at any given moment. That, by the way, is Tony' second biggest grievance with the Extremis. 

So. Mission outlast the idiot is proceeding exactly as expected, and however much it might irritate Tony, at least it reduces the risk of collateral damage.

“Sir,” Jarvis projects, “we are capable of continuing at this pace for eighty-six hours without difficulty, according to my latest calculations.” Behind the mask, Tony smiles. Jarvis is getting more and more adept at pushing people's buttons as time goes on; Tony thinks that's just from having Tony around to act as a good role model.

“Eighty-six hours to go, copy,” Tony says, cheerfully, and picks up his pace to literally fly circles around the guy he's chasing. “How're you feeling about that? If you get tired, you can just turn yourself in any time. I won't think any less of you for it, pinky swear.”

The guy just swears at Tony, loudly and creatively, and Tony would retort, except he starts seeing telltale flashes of red under the guy's skin, quick as a pulse. That is almost never a good thing. Tony pulls back, cutting his velocity and letting the guy get ahead a little, hoping it'll calm him down. Fuck. “Jarvis,” he says, this time disengaging the suit speakers, “I think our bank-robbing friend there is going to blow. How're we doing on the evacuation of this area?”

“Evacuation efforts are forty percent complete, sir,” Jarvis comes back, equally as quietly.

“Not good enough,” Tony says, gritting his teeth in thought. He doesn't want to let this guy go—if he does, chances are the idiot will blow the next time his heart rate bumps over normal, and Tony won't be able to control when and where that happens. That said, if he keeps chasing, chances are Tony's going to trigger the overload himself. Tony doesn't like either of those options. “Okay, Jarvis, I'm gonna gain a little altitude, give him some breathing space. Keep an eye on him for me?”

“Of course,” Jarvis says, and Tony adjusts the repulsors, sending himself rocketing upwards, hopefully quickly enough that the guy doesn't keep an eye on him, and just thinks Tony's given up. 

With that taken care of, Tony opens his comm line. “I know we're all a bit occupied right now,” Tony says, “but just so you know, I have someone about a sneeze away from going into overload and exploding. If you need to come my way, tiptoe.”

“You're not the only one,” Clint's returns over the line, situation making his usually light-hearted voice tip towards solemn. 

“Just try to hold them off until we get the word that they've cleared the streets,” Cap says, tone fairly close to grim. Tony looks down at the bank robber, who's starting to do a fairly decent impression of a human strobe light, and really doesn't think he's going to get that lucky.

Still, a little optimism can't hurt. “Can do, Cap," Tony says, and corrects his velocity to stay safely behind the guy and out of view. Now all he needs is for the bank robber to keep being distracted by the situation, and not pay attention to how close he is to overload. In Tony's experience, the Extremis at this point is pretty much a vicious cycle: panic and adrenaline cause the body to stop regulating the drug properly, and then visible signs of overload make the user panic more, and it's pretty much downhill from there. Within about five minutes of the user noticing, there's usually an explosion.

“I know you're still out there!” the guy yells. Even from this altitude, Tony can still see the quick pulsing under the guy's skin—shit. None of his options have very good odds at this point. Start visibly chasing the guy again in the hopes of keeping him distracted, and probably set him off; stay out of sight, let the robber notice his death creeping up under his skin, and probably set him off; stay out of sight, let the robber feel paranoid about Tony even if he doesn't notice the overload, and probably set him off; stop chasing, and probably have the guy overload anyway. All roads are leading to the same place, no matter how Tony plays with the variables, and it's a place he doesn't want to go.

“Jarvis,” Tony says, changing his trajectory slightly to provide him some cover if the robber turns back around, “what're the odds he's going to decide to suddenly stop running and take deep slow breaths?”

“Infinitesimal, sir,” Jarvis says.

“Thought you might say that,” Tony says, and sighs. “We need a better plan, and—”

Then Tony needs to shut up, because the robber suddenly changes direction, and all but sprints through the open door of a building, shit shit shit—

Tony drops into an outright dive, losing altitude fast enough that he nearly scrapes the sidewalk on his way down. The guy picked a supermarket, one with the automated doors that work on motion sensors—Tony's still going fast enough when he reaches the doors that the motion sensors can't keep up, and so he makes his entrance by crashing two hundred pounds of metal suit through sliding glass doors.

“Stop,” the robber says, his arms wrapped around a woman and a child, in what would look like a cheerful family moment were it not for the terrified expressions of the mother and child, and the pulses of red writhing under the man's skin. The kid can't be more than six, and he's got her wrapped firmly under one arm, grip strong enough to hold against her writhing.

Tony cuts all power to the repulsors and drops, immediately, like a stone. His weight puts a sizable dent in the supermarket's linoleum tiles, and the sudden change in speed comes really close to throwing Tony off balance. He catches himself, though, and stands, careful to keep his repulsors pointed neutrally downwards. “Hey,” he says, in the closest approximation to a soothing voice that his suit speakers are capable of, “I stopped, you're in charge here. You don't need to hurt anyone.”

“I don't need to,” the robber acknowledges, but he doesn't let either the mother or child go. “I'm going to, though.” The robber looks down at his arm, where the red pulses are nearly racing now. “We both know I'm gonna blow. Going out alone now, after everything—that'd just be pathetic, wouldn't it?”

“Six other life signs are scattered throughout the store, sir,” Jarvis informs Tony, and Tony closes his eyes behind the mask. Eight lives—nine, if he includes himself, which he probably should considering he's not sure how much protection the suit would be at this sort of distance—riding on Tony being able to talk down a guy who doesn't want to die alone.

“You were a soldier once, weren't you?” Tony tries, because statistically speaking most Extremis users are selected based on amputated limbs or significant wounds, and those sorts of injuries are most common in former soldiers. “You fought to protect people's lives—”

The guy laughs, and it's not a happy sound. “Yeah, and that got me what, an inability to feel my legs and a bad case of PTSD? Fuck that.” The red bleeds into one eye, and they're precariously close to an explosion here. “No, this is what's going to happen. You want them to live? Take off the suit, come over here, and take their place.”

Tony closes his eyes, and opens them. Then he reaches for the manual catches of the helmet, applies pressure as precisely as the suit's blunted fingers will allow him, and pulls it off. The crashing sound it makes when he drops it to the ground is almost as loud as the shattering impact of his entrance was. “Let them all go,” Tony says, and reaches for the next set of releases. 

The guy smiles, and, making the gesture obvious, lets go. The woman, who up to this point had been mostly silent save for whispers to her child, lets out a loud, relieved noise and scoops her child up, all but running for the supermarket door. The other six people in the store do the same, picking their way over shattered glass to freedom. Tony just sort of hopes they have the good sense to keep running once they're outside, and get well out of the blast radius.

The chest plate unlatches first, and then a series of catches along the thighs and legs free Tony of most of the rest of the suit. “See,” Tony says, unhooking the releases to his left gauntlet and stepping closer to the robber, “this has always been my biggest problem with the Extremis.” He pulls the left gauntlet off, and drops it to the ground. Now freed, the fingers of his left hand go to his right gauntlet, pressing in.

“What?” the guy asks, that morbid happiness still evident on his face and in his voice, and gestures Tony to step even closer. “That it overloads and kills people?”

“No,” Tony says, and steps up until he's right at the robber's side, watching the rate of the pulses under his skin. “That it attracts arrogant sons of bitches and lets them think they're invulnerable.”

This once, Tony's problem with Extremis works in his favor: at point blank range, a repulsor blast to the face, even from a disconnected repulsor working on the last of its stored charge, will put a man down. Normally, no one's stupid enough to let Tony that close with a repulsor still on his arm; supposed invulnerability makes people idiots, and for once Tony's thankful for that.

The robber sinks to the ground in a boneless-looking slump, red still racing under his skin, and Tony runs. Flat out, inelegantly sprints—it's too late to stop the explosion, but maybe he can get out of the blast radius—maybe he can get out—

The blast, when it comes, catches Tony full on the back, searing the skin along his spine and throwing him bodily out into the street. His landing isn't gentle—he lands in the street and skids a few feet, head banging against the street and skin scraping raw. Pain flares everywhere and fuck, Tony hurts.

Tony breathes, asphalt under his mouth and copper thick on his tongue. He should get up, probably—

He tries, he really does. He gets his head up a little, and then the world spins sickeningly and black dots bloom across his vision and the world rings—and Tony has a second of knowing he's about to pass out, before his body finally does it.

The last thing he remembers is the sound of footsteps crossing rubble, and cool fingers descending on his neck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you got this far and enjoyed, please feel free to drop a comment either here or on my tumblr: http://skollwolf.tumblr.com/
> 
> I'm always happy to answer any questions or concerns, or discuss any thoughts you might have. Getting feedback from you guys makes me a better writer. *grins*
> 
> Also, starting next week I'm going to be writing in the Frostiron Big Bang. I have a prompt I'm fairly attached to, but I'm still open to suggestions. If there's something you'd really like to see me write, drop your prompt in my tumblr askbox and, even if I don't wind up using it for the Big Bang, chances are I'll write a snippet about it at some point.
> 
> I'm going to go sleep now. See you all next Thursday, at about this same time.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, as a forewarning, this chapter is a bit short. I had class last weekend, which I normally don't, and had a few tests in class this week. Suffice it to say, I haven't had as much writing time as I'd like, and the bits coming up next are important enough that I'd rather not rush them. So, short chapter this week, longer chapter with plot (and Loki!) next week. Just to keep you all apprised.
> 
> Enjoy.

Before Tony even opens his eyes, he knows he isn't in a hospital.

He has absolutely no idea why he isn't. Usually, Tony's pretty good at assessing which injuries require hospitalization and which don't—even if he usually signs himself out AMA as soon as he can, he isn't enough of an idiot to insist on never seeing a doctor at all for major injuries. Between the burns on his back and the lovely skid Tony did down the pavement, he knows he was in bad enough shape that he should by all rights be waking up surrounded by hospital smell and the insistent beeping of a heart monitor.

Instead he wakes up in a place that, for all intents and purposes, feels just like his room in the Avengers tower. Either hospital beds have gotten a hell of a lot nicer since the last time Tony was stuck in one, or there's something weird going on here.

Tony opens his eyes, and the motion feels stiff and difficult, the way it usually does if Tony's been asleep for too long. As it turns out, he is in his own room, which looks exactly as it did when he left it—well, exactly the same except for how Bruce is sitting in a chair next to his bed, clearly having dozed off in the middle of keeping vigil over Tony. 

“Hey,” Tony says, and his voice comes out rougher than expected. 

Bruce startles awake, a jerking motion that threatens to knock him out of his chair before he catches himself. “Hey,” Bruce says in return, and his lips curl up into a small smile. “Welcome back to the waking world.”

“How long was I out for?” Tony asks. “And while I'm asking questions, how the hell am I laying on my back without being in agonizing pain? I was pretty much expecting agonizing pain.” Tony has a high pain tolerance, granted, but then he's never burnt himself that badly before. He expected to feel like hell. Instead he feels stiff, and the places where he scraped the skin off his front ache like he expected them to, but his back actually feels...pretty okay, all things considered. There's a mild, muted discomfort going on there, but considering that Tony was expecting to need skin grafts, the lack of pain is pretty weird. One more question occurs to him, and Tony asks, “Also, is there water around that I could drink?”

Someone—probably Steve if Tony's guessing right—set out a pitcher of water and a cup on Tony's bedside table. Bruce fills the cup and hands it to Tony, and then says, “You've been out for three days.” Tony nearly chokes on the water he was drinking at that, and has to wave away Bruce's concern. He probably should have expected that, but still, three days. Bruce settles back into his chair, meets Tony's eyes, and says, “As for how your back healed so fast? I have no idea. You were missing for a day, and then you appeared in your own bed.”

Tony snorts, because he isn't an idiot. “So apparently the god of mischief does heal-and-run's now?” he says. He's not surprised Loki didn't stick around to wait by his bedside—Loki's not the type to pine away over Tony's sleeping form, or however the fuck that one's supposed to go. He can absolutely picture Loki healing him enough to keep Tony useful, and then dropping him off for other people to bother with the rest. What surprises Tony is that Loki managed to conveniently appear out of the ether just in time to keep Tony intact.

Or...actually, scratch that, Tony's not surprised at all. 

“Apparently,” Bruce says. “Lucky for you, apparently he's good at it too. You should probably take a look at your back, once you're feeling better.” 

Tony can't help feeling a little alarmed at that, and, right, he's getting up now. Bruce makes a small, disapproving sound when Tony slides his feet over the side of the bed and down to the ground, but he doesn't actually do anything to stop Tony besides raising one eyebrow and looking at Tony like he's an idiot. Tony grins back at him. “Come on, Bruce, you know me better than that,” he says, and stands up. 

For a second, pain, tiredness and stiffness nearly manage to knock him back onto the bed, and he sways—then he manages to push past that and get properly upright. “See?” he says. “Everything's fine, nothing to worry about.” There's a full-length mirror hung over his closet door—what, Tony's never denied that he's vain—and it only takes a few steps to get there. Those steps are more tiring than they ought to be, but then, considering that Tony's pretty sure actual medical advice at this point would be for him to not be doing this at all, he'll take what he can get.

Somebody put Tony in one of the oldest, most comfortable tee-shirts he owns, and Tony strips it off impatiently. Possibly, he moves a little too fast, because the shirt drags against his chest on its way up, changing the ache of his scraped skin into an acute, flaring burn of pain. Tony has to close his eyes against the pain, and it makes him dizzy—if there hadn't been a wall directly next to him, Tony would probably fall over just then.

Then Bruce is next to him, one hand steadying Tony and the other dragging his shirt the rest of the way off his head. “For a genius,” he says, amusement obvious in his voice, “you can really be an idiot sometimes.”

Tony, because this is actually just how his mouth works, says, “Well. This has been homoerotic.” Bruce huffs out a laugh, quiet enough that Tony wouldn't have heard it from a greater distance, and then draws back with Tony's shirt in his hands. Tony's tempted to keep teasing, to provoke Bruce into full on laughter, but right now vanity wins out over attempting to irritate his favorite, and Tony turns to put his back to the mirror and looks over his shoulder.

“Huh,” Tony says, because his first reaction is genuinely just confusion. Even with Loki's mojo, Tony was expecting burn scars—raised, pink-white wrinkles of skin, the way that burns normally scar. Instead, his back is covered in thin lines, completely level with his unburned skin. If it weren't for the color—the pink-white he was expecting, with faint red around the edges—Tony wouldn't recognize them as burn scars at all. His entire back looks like he got some sort of strange tattoo of a topographical map, weaving scars standing in for contour lines. It looks nothing like the burn scars Tony's seen before, and, also, “That's kind of hot.”

He startles a full laugh out of Bruce with that one. “Why am I not surprised you said that?” Bruce asks.

“I'm Tony Stark,” Tony says, and throws Bruce his best arrogant smile. Then he looks back at the mirror, still taking in the sight of his back. Of all the scars Tony's picked up over the years, these are definitely not the worst. 

Bruce gives him another minute to look, and then says, “Come on, Tony. You're not even supposed to be out of bed yet. Your back will still be there when you've healed.”

That is true, and then there's the small issue where Tony's sore body is starting to chime in as really not liking this being vertical idea. Tony lets Bruce steer him back to the bed, but puts on his own damned shirt this time, no assistance required. “Hey,” he says, as an afterthought, “you don't have to stick around if you've been here for a while. I promise not to suddenly die if left by myself for five minutes.”

Bruce shakes his head. “No, I'm fine here. I will go get the others, though. They'll be happy to see you up and talking.”

“For a given definition of happy,” Tony says, one eyebrow rising, because he's pretty sure the first thing that'll come out of Barton's mouth when he walks through the door will be a joke about having enjoyed the silence while it lasted. He lets Bruce go, though, and spends the few minutes between when Bruce leaves and when his entire team piles into his bedroom thinking.

Tony's got a few things to say to the god of mischief.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, it's currently three a.m. where I am. I'm sorry for not posting last week (real life was insane, and I spent large chunks of time sitting in a hospital room), and for the weird posting time this week. 
> 
> This chapter was one where I thought I would be writing one thing, and Tony took the wheel and had me write something completely different. As such, this chapter is less edited than it would normally be, and I'm too tired right now to give it the thorough look over it deserves. If there are any errors, I'll catch them on my editing sweep later this weekend.
> 
> Also, as of this chapter, there are one or two more chapters before we're heading into the final plot arc for this story, just as a heads up.
> 
> Enjoy.

Loki being who he is, Tony's not particularly surprised that the god only shows up when Tony is nearly asleep.

Of course, the key word there is 'nearly.' Tony's in the middle of drifting off when he hears the faint sound of air being displaced that usually accompanies Loki's teleportation, and that sound is enough to snap him back into consciousness. Tony opens his eyes, half-expecting Loki to have disappeared again by the time Tony gets them open—but no, there the god of lies is, standing by his bedside, frowning faintly. “So, you might not know this,” Tony says, “but deliberately showing up to watch me while I sleep? Qualifies as a little creepy.”

Loki doesn't insult Tony's intelligence by claiming that wasn't what he was trying to do, thankfully; being stuck in his bed, limited by his still-healing body, has sort of put Tony on edge, and he's not sure he's feeling patient enough to deal with Loki at his most aggravating right now. “I came to see the results of my work, not you,” Loki says instead, doing that thing where he covers up emotional tells with an expression of arrogance. “It takes no small effort to convince your mortal skin to forget its wounds, and I would not see my generosity wasted.” Shrugging slightly, Loki continues, “As you are healing, and not recklessly throwing yourself into further danger, I shall consider the effort justified, and leave.”

Tony comes this close to making some sort of comment—seriously, was that Loki's brand of actual concern, or what?—but he knows Loki well enough to realize the god will disappear in a haze of green light the second Tony brings sentiment into this. “Hey,” he says instead, “no, hang on a second. There's a conversation we need to have.”

“Riveting as that might be, Stark,” Loki says, sarcastically enough that Tony can't help but feel a bit insulted, “my time is not yours to waste.” 

Irritation flashes through Tony, and, acting on impulse, he reaches out a hand and grabs Loki's wrist. “Fuck that,” Tony says, and meets Loki's gaze unblinkingly. If Loki wants to skip out on this, he's either going to have to break Tony's grip—which, okay, would probably be pretty easy for Loki given the disparities in their physical strengths, but in this case it's the meaning behind the gesture that counts—or take Tony with him, to wherever he's rushing off to. “You spent months manipulating me into being your ally, you can deal with the consequences of actually working with someone for two seconds. I have a question, you have answers, it's really pretty simple.”

If Tony was anyone else, he probably wouldn't live long enough to regret that comment. As things stand, Loki twists his arm away from Tony's grip, but, gratifyingly enough, doesn't vanish immediately into the ether. “Petulance suits you ill,” Loki says, condescension layered thickly through his tone; it's probably a major step forward for them that they skip over the threat-and-retort phase of the conversation entirely. “Go on then: ask.”

Right, so they're doing blunt and straight to the point, Tony can do that. “So, for the record,” he says, “exactly how long have you had some sort of monitoring spell on me?”

Because of course Loki does. Tony's not an idiot—allies or no, Loki isn't the type to hang around, just waiting to save Tony's ass at the last possible second. Loki's timing was too good to be coincidental. The most logical, probable answer here is that Loki's stuck some sort of magical equivalent of a baby monitor on Tony, probably set to go off if Tony does something particularly life-threatening. Loki tends to equate _mortal_ with _idiotic_ , after all; it's hardly surprising.

On the one hand, Tony's a big fan of living, and if Loki keeping a magical eye out for him is what it takes to keep Tony that way, Tony can't exactly say he minds. Still, though, it bothers Tony to think that he might have been carrying around some sort of magical tag-along this whole time without even noticing. It's one more reminder that, regardless of the fact that Tony's a goddamned bonafide genius, Loki has spent this whole time one step ahead—because Loki can stick a magical monitor on Tony without his knowledge or consent, and Tony still can't even get a straight answer out of the god, somedays. It makes Tony feel...fuck, it makes him feel impotent, and that's not exactly his favorite feeling in the world.

What Tony wants right now is a serious answer; what he gets is laughter, low peals of sound that ring false and slightly mocking, while Loki holds Tony's gaze relentlessly. “This?” Loki asks, and Tony's hands clench into fists at his side. “This is your great concern, the question so urgent it is worth delaying me here?” Fuck. Tony recognizes that tone, though Loki hasn't used it on him since that first talk, in the SHIELD holding cell.

Instead of bracing for whatever cutting thing Loki's gearing up for, Tony goes on the offense. Forcing boredom into his tone, Tony says, “Oh, are we doing this again? Because I hate to break it to you, buddy, but that whole verbal evisceration party trick gets a bit less impressive every time you try it. Maybe you should think about branching out.”

Loki's eyes narrow, and he says, perfectly evenly, “For one who takes such pride in his intellect, Stark, you are far slower to understand than I anticipate. Did you think it coincidence, that I appeared just in time to save you from the hands of the Chitauri, after a month's absence? You are quick to point out my manipulations, yet it seems you fail to understand the scope of them. Perhaps you need some reminder of precisely who I am.” Loki spreads his hands out, the movement dramatic: a performer, drawing attention to his act. “It is a strange thing, the inclination of mortals to feel trust towards those who save their lives, to feel beholden to their rescuer—a strange thing, but a deeply predictable one.”

“You're implying you deliberately waited to show up until my life was in danger,” Tony says. His whole body is perfectly still. “That you wanted to play the hero, so that, what, my pathetic mortal trust would convince me an alliance with you was a good idea?”

Loki smiles, the expression sharp, and shrugs. “It was a gamble,” he acknowledges, smoothly, “and perhaps, with any other mortal, it would not have paid off. Luckily enough, however, you hold your life in small enough regard that I needed only a month to reap the rewards of it.”

It's masterfully delivered, Tony has to give Loki that. Still, by now Tony's fairly decent at reading Loki, at piecing together the tiny, honest hints Loki doesn't bother to fully hide in order to make a bigger picture.

Tony looks the god of lies and mischief straight in the eyes and says, slowly and clearly, “Bullshit.”

Loki raises one eyebrow, and says, “Oh? Do illuminate me as to the truth, then, Stark.”

Tony laughs, and says, “Oh, I'd be thrilled to. See, I'm willing to believe you're a scheming bastard up to a certain point, because that pretty much comes with your job description, but this? You overreached, Loki. Thing is, nobody's as good as you're making yourself out to be—and before you give me the whole speech about how you're a king and a god and you eat mere mortal liars as part of a balanced breakfast, I mean you too. Because if your control was really that good, if you were really smart enough to make those sorts of gambles work, you know where you'd be right now? Sitting on the throne of Asgard, surrounded by loyal subjects, and not here on Earth, with a price on your head and one measly mortal as your best choice for an ally.”

Tony can tell, from the way Loki's face goes completely expressionless, that that one hurt. Good, he thinks, uncharitably: he meant it to. This is what happens, when you make Tony feel impotent and stuck perpetually a step behind—because yes, he's a mortal, and he doesn't have a thousand odd years of experience and magic at his back, but he's also _Tony goddamned Stark_. He's pretty sure he isn't the one here who's forgotten who he's dealing with. Maybe it's Loki's turn for a reminder of why Tony was dangerous enough to be worth allying himself with in the first place.

“I should cut your throat for that,” Loki says, voice a low, dark hiss, and empirically speaking it's one of the most terrifying things Tony's ever heard.

Tony smiles. “That would be kind of counter-intuitive, seeing as this whole conversation is only happening because I nearly got myself killed in the first place.” 

If it were possible for words to suck all the air out of the room, Tony thinks those would have managed it. “Next time you say 'hold your life in small enough regard,'” Tony quotes, feeling marginally gentler now, “maybe try a little harder to make it sound like the words aren't hurting you. Actually, next time you're pissed at me for nearly dying on your watch, maybe just tell me so, yell at me like a normal person, rather than pushing the evil mastermind gambit past all logical extremes.” Tony is, by no means, the most emotionally mature person on the planet himself, and so his best advice essentially boils down to, “We can actually shout at each other about things that happen in real life, instead of inventing shit to be angry over. Just as a thought.”

For a second, Tony is really not sure how Loki's going to react to that. Considering the Norse god seems to be trying to elevate emotional avoidance to a full on art form, anything's possible, up to and including the murder Loki was just threatening. Tony's about ninety percent sure he doesn't have anything to be afraid of there, but that certainty is mostly based on the assumption that Loki wouldn't cut off his own nose to spite his face, as it were. 

Then the second's up, and Loki's laughing—and, to Tony's immense gratification, this time the laughter just sounds amused, if slightly tired. That's definitely better than the murder possibility, anyway. A moment later, Loki says, “In answer to your question, Stark, the monitoring spell has been in place since our conversation in Central Park.”

Tony relaxes at that: his answer, with the added bonus of skipping right over an awkward conversation about valuing each other's lives. Loki doesn't want him dead, Tony wouldn't want Loki dead if there was anything actually threatening his life, and so Loki's dropping the Master of Darkness routine and Tony's dropping the topic—it's as good as actually talking about it, in Tony's book. Plus, this way has the added bonus of not making Tony think too hard about when he and Loki started giving a shit about each other's well being. “Was that what all the touching was for?” he asks, and one of his hands raises automatically to press at his arc reactor, remembering Loki's hand doing much the same thing over a month ago.

“For the charade as well,” Loki says, “but yes, the spell was part of my intent. Magic does not require contact to be passed on, but, idiosyncratic as it might seem, physical pressure will increase the lifespan of such a spell, and ease the transfer to the intended recipient.”

“Huh,” Tony says, momentarily distracted by that. “Is it a psychosomatic thing, do you think? You think physical touch is what makes something stick, so your magic picks up on that belief?”

“Perhaps,” Loki affords, with a shrug. “That is, I think, a question to pursue another day, as I have lingered longer than I intended already.” Which, okay, Tony had been writing off Loki's supposed time constraints as part of the whole emotional avoidance thing up until now, but it makes sense that Loki's needed elsewhere. They do actually have a plan, complete with its own inherent time limits; apparently, Loki's part of it is more time intensive than Tony anticipated.

Tony grins, and says, “Send Death my regards,” because being a bit of a dick feels more fitting than saying goodbye.

Loki gives him a look that makes it abundantly clear how little he appreciates Tony's sense of humor, and says, “Momentarily. I would see how your back heals, first.” Tony raises an eyebrow, and Loki says, drily, “I had actually meant this to be a brief inspection rather than a social call, Stark.”

“You say that like you don't appreciate my sparkling conversation,” Tony says, snark pretty much his default reaction to everything. Once again, Tony goes through the unnecessarily complex process of getting out of bed, everything made more difficult by the aches from the parts Loki didn't heal. 

Upright at last, Tony debates the shirt dilemma. Finally, he sucks up his pride and says, “Okay, so this is going to sound stupid, but I have pretty solid evidence of the fact that I can't take my own shirt off right now without it hurting like hell. Help me out, so we can get this over with and never talk about it again?”

It comes out sounding almost like a terrible pick-up line, which unfortunately only occurs to Tony after he's finished saying it. Apparently, though, the aftermath of the whole argument they just had is enough to spare him the derision Tony would normally expect from Loki over this; the god just moves to Tony's side, and curls his fingers around the bottom of Tony's shirt.

If Tony shivers when Loki's fingers brush the skin below the rim of Tony's shirt, it's just because—

Fuck, no, Tony's not lying to himself in his own head. Yes, Loki's fingers are cool against his skin, nearly but not quite enough to raise goosebumps across Tony's skin, but the shiver is more about how green Loki's eyes look at this distance, about how tempted Tony is to press his lips to the sharp angle of Loki's cheekbones and kiss his way downwards, to taste the thin line of Loki's lips, and not much to do with the cold at all.

Fuck, Tony is so absolutely screwed that it isn't even funny.

In the midst of this line of thought, Loki tugs Tony's shirt upwards—Tony lifts his arms by instinct, and the shirt slides over his head, leaving him half-naked with Loki just inches away. That doesn't really help Tony's efforts to get his thoughts under control, for the record.

“Turn,” Loki says, and Tony obeys, turning his back to Loki. Tony can tell, from the rustling sound of Loki's clothes, that Loki's taken a step backwards, probably to get a better view of Tony's back. Right. That makes sense. “Hm,” Loki says, a low, thoughtful sounding hum. “Much as I left them, then. No further damage or tears to the scars. Would you prefer I try to heal the scars entirely?”

Tony thinks about it for a second, and then says, “Nah. I kind of like them.” His voice comes out sounding rougher than he really has an excuse for. Then—and Tony will maintain, later, that this is what breaks him—Loki reaches out one finger and ghosts a touch along the line of one of the scars, and probably it's to test sensation in the skin or something equally rational, but it feels like a lover's touch, and Tony closes his eyes. “I'm about to do something stupid,” he says, because, hey, disclaimers never hurt.

Loki has enough time to say, warily, “Stark—,” but the god has a little difficulty getting his message out past there, probably because by then Tony's spun around and caught the words against his mouth.

There's no hesitance in the way Loki kisses, from basically second one. It's Tony who actually braves the distance between them and presses in, presses up, but the second their lips make contact, all of Loki's wariness turns into unwavering enthusiasm. Tony nips at Loki, rolling one thin lip gently between his teeth, and then licks at the faint indent his teeth left behind, and Loki doesn't just open his mouth to Tony, he sucks Tony's tongue in himself. Any struggle for control of the kiss is totally forgotten, swapped out for a struggle over skill, and Loki's got a thousand years of practice on his side but Tony doesn't do too badly himself—he sways into Loki, letting Loki take some of his weight, tasting the faint, lingering spice of a meal on Loki's tongue and below that something innately _Loki_ , and just enjoys the fact that _fuck_ , Loki really is good with his tongue.

Tony's chest hurts, where the scrapped skin is pressed close against Loki; his need for oxygen is getting a bit pressing; despite that, and despite every bit of Tony's common sense, it's still a damn good kiss. 

Then it's over, even more suddenly than it started, and Loki's gone from Tony's grip so abruptly that Tony nearly falls over. 

“What?” Tony manages to ask, and, really, he thinks it's pretty articulate, considering he's mildly aroused and majorly confused.

“Of all the infinite possible times for this,” Loki says, his voice little more than a hiss, “of course you would chose this moment.” Tony doesn't know what language comes out of Loki's mouth next, but it definitely isn't English, and he's definitely using it to curse. Tony opens his mouth—he's not sure what he's going to say, but it'll be some sort of question—and Loki cuts him off and snaps, “I'll return later.”

And with that extremely thorough and satisfying explanation of his actions, Loki vanishes in a flash of green magic, leaving Tony half-dressed and irritated in his wake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you got this far and enjoyed, feel free to drop me a comment here or at my tumblr: http://skollwolf.tumblr.com/ I'm always happy to hear any thoughts or questions you might have, and I just love hearing from you guys in general.
> 
> See you next Thursday/possibly ridiculous hour of Friday morning. *grins*


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An explanation of the POV of this chapter: Loki badly wanted to tell part of his story, but once again we're at a point where Loki knows enough to spoil the next few chapters, so I couldn't really let him narrate. Tony, on the other hand, was being particularly uncooperative when I tried to write it from his perspective. So instead you got a really rare POV for me, and one which you probably won't see again in my stories. 
> 
> Enjoy.

“Infuriating,” her father says, the only explanation he gives for his rather dramatic reentrance to Hel's beloved hall. These last months, Hel has seen more of her father than in the entire century preceding; the reason for this sudden sociability does not escape her.

Hel feels a smile curve her face, an uneven expression that contorts her living flesh beyond its norm, and which the half of her face that is dead flesh cannot hope to match. “Shall I assume it is your mortal who has thrown you into such disarray, father?” Hel asks, not a little smugly. She is, in some ways, very much her father's daughter—she appreciates finely wrought chaos when her attention is drawn to it, and the trickster is not even attempting subtlety now. It is rare, to see her father so open in moments of emotion, to be given physical honesty that need be neither bargained nor fought for.

A mortal that Loki Silvertongue calls clever, who can win honesty from the god of lies: Hel will see, come time for Tony Stark's death, whether it is within her power to bring his soul to Niflheim. She suspects much will be more interesting with him kept nearby—though, equally, she is fairly certain she might have to fight the Lady Death to keep him for herself.

“Who else?” Loki snaps, and perhaps he is aware of how telling she finds those words, as mere moments later he finally summons his usual facade, all hints of emotion neatly tucked away behind an expression that rings of arrogance. His voice, when he next speaks, is unreadable. “I have wasted enough time on trivialities, this night. Tell me, how badly did my absence offend our guest?”

“She left not long after you made your excuses,” Hel says, unafraid to be the bearer of bad news. Her father's expression tightens, and Hel struggles to keep from appearing pleased. It is one thing to invite the Lady Death to her halls that they might renew their contracts, or renegotiate the terms under which Hel maintains her power over the souls of the dead; it is another thing entire to welcome Death into Niflheim for something other than necessity, and for no cause less than the one her father brought before her would Hel allow it. Even understanding the necessity of what Loki does, Hel still cannot help but feel relieved when the Lady Death is gone from her home. “She, I should mention, made no such excuses. I know not where she went.”

“Death comes and goes as she pleases,” Loki says, and for all that his tone his neutral and his expression pleasant, Hel can nevertheless read the uneasiness lying under her father's skin.

“And for now she is gone,” Hel agrees, tone equally neutral. She thinks, for this moment, that Death's far-seeing eye is turned from them—still, it does not do to speak of Death, and expect her not to hear. The Lady grants Hel autonomy in the realms of Hel and Niflheim because Hel is shrewd in her contracts, and knows when to be silent. She will not break the habit of years now, simply because she believes Death looks elsewhere. 

Loki shuts his eyes for a moment, and when he opens them, the fire that burned there since he returned from his visit with the mortal has been quenched. “Well, then,” he says, something sharp in his voice, “what can I do but seek her out?”

Hel says what she told her father when he first spoke of this plan. “Death does not always look kindly on being pursued.” Her father, of course, does not hear it, any more than he heard it when first she offered advice. Tony Stark has set her father on a path, and, for better or worse, her father will see it out. More than once, Hel has wondered precisely whom her father believes he is proving himself to: the Lady Death, or the mortal.

“Will you not wish me good hunting?” Loki says, and it is well for him that he is gone in a flash of green magic before Hel can give her opinion on that.

Hel shakes her head, unsurprised. For all his brilliance, Hel has long known her father for a fool.

…

It comes to Hel as a whisper on the air, a curl of fog that plays about the shell of her ear not three days after her father's latest disappearance, and Hel tilts her head into the moist air and listens.

She is attending her court this day, listening to the grievances of her subjects the dead, but this is more important. Hel lifts one hand and calls for her guards, assuring her people they will be heard another day—it is not every day, after all, that Hel needs save her father from himself.

She pulls her cloak tighter, feeling the illusion shift and weave over her skin, making the dead flesh appear alive. Hel will never pass for mortal, but outside of her own realm it weakens her greatly to be without the power behind that illusion, and she does have a very long way to go.

Hel has not set foot on Midgard for several mortal lifetimes—this will have to change.

…

“Sir,” a voice speaks from midair, when Hel's path finally ends, and she finds herself breathing the thin, dry air of Midgard. “We seem to have an unannounced visitor.”

She first sees Tony Stark as a silhouette, sheathed in fire, nearly otherworldly in his own right—at the sound of the voice, though, the fire recedes into some sort of metallic tool, and her father's mortal appears as he is in true, simply a man. Tony Stark reaches up and pulls dark, protective lenses up from where they cover his eyes—his hair forms dark, disarrayed spikes where the strap of the lenses pushes into it, and even from this distance, Hel can see black marring the mortal's skin, in circles under his eyes and streaks of grease across his skin.

Her father's mortal blinks owlishly, and then says, “Jarvis, when did it get so dark down here?”

Rather pointedly, the disembodied voice says, “When, after seventy-two hours of work, you ignored all advice from your teammates to rest, Captain America overrode my protocols and turned off the laboratory lights in a well-meaning but futile attempt to force you to sleep, Mr. Stark.” The building is suddenly illuminated, by what Hel presumes is a mortal invention of late and not magic.

“That would do it, yeah,” Tony Stark says, and finally turns to address her properly. “And who the hell are you, exactly?”

The phrasing gives her some small amusement, and Hel sweeps a flourishing bow she thinks her father would be proud of. “Hel herself, in fact,” she says.

The mortal raises dark brows, and says, “Loki's daughter?”

“The very same,” Hel agrees, “and here on my father's behalf.”

Tony Stark's eyes narrow, and Hel sees what her father appreciates in this particular mortal: there is a spark in him that waits to alight at any moment, a passion that most mortals cannot match. Hel offers her father's name as the reason for her presence, and suddenly the mortal is fierce. Hel thinks again of her first impression of Tony Stark, limned in fire of his own making and using that fire for his own creation, for the shaping of the metal he stands surrounded by. From what little she knows of him, she still cannot help but find it appropriate. “If Loki thinks I'm letting off the hook without an explanation just because he sent his daughter—”

“He did not send me,” Hel interrupts to correct. “I am here on his behalf, but I am sent by another altogether. You will recognize the name, I think, of the Lady Death?”

Tony Stark raises a hand and scrubs it through his hair, pushing himself farther into disarray. “Fuck,” he says, eloquently, and then says, “well, you wouldn't be here if you didn't need me, give me a second to get everything sorted here and then I'll be right with you.”

Hel waits, and once the metal is treated well enough to meet his standards, the mortal steps quickly to her side, clapping his hands together. “Right,” he says, and smiles at her, charmingly, “shall we go see what your father fucked up?”

Amused despite herself, Hel laughs. “Very well,” she says, and nearly holds out her arm before she remembers herself. A touch from her bare skin will mean death to the mortal, and Hel can already see that, for a being of such vibrancy, premature death would be a waste, to say nothing of how much it would irritate her father. No, Hel shall keep her distance, this once. “Follow me, but never step close enough to touch. The way we must walk is long, and I would have you alive at the end of it.”

The mortal rocks back on his heels, and pointedly inserts his hands into his pockets. “No touching, got it. Lead on.”

“Sir,” the voice in the air says, and Tony Stark does not pause to hear what advice his servant might give.

“Keep dinner warm for me, honey,” he says, tone saccharine and doubtless meant to irritate.

Hel might have a place held in her heart for brilliant fools, but that is one thing and patience is another. “Come,” she says, putting an end to whatever might have followed there. “There is little enough time to travel, and none to waste.”

“A long walk, right,” Tony Stark acknowledges—and when Hel opens a path between the worlds, he follows just behind her, always just too far to touch but never far enough to lose her there. Hel would call him sensible, but—

The mortal follows her willingly into the lands of Death, to protect the well-being of a god of lies and mischief, and that tells its own story about Tony Stark's sensibility.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, if you got this far and enjoyed, I always love hearing from readers either here or on my tumblr: http://skollwolf.tumblr.com/
> 
> I had other things I wanted to say, but I'm tired and I forgot them, so hopefully they weren't urgent.
> 
> See you all next Thursday/early Friday, when this plot arc comes to its end and the last arc of this story starts.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I probably should have realized that last Thursday was the fourth of July ahead of time, and warned that I wouldn't be updating, but I honestly forgot right up until the day before. So, if you were wondering why I missed a week, the answer is a national holiday, and my somewhat outrageous love for fireworks. Also, I know today isn't a Thursday, and I'm not changing my update day, but this chapter needed a little extra time.
> 
> With that said, here it is, the chapter I've wanted to write for literally this entire plot arc. *grins* Don't read the end note if you haven't read the chapter yet, it's spoiler-y.
> 
> Enjoy.

So, when Hel herself came and got Tony to help fix her father's mess, Tony was expecting something more along the lines of a dramatic, swooping rescue. He's one of the Avengers, the media likes to call him a superhero when they've run out of other things to call him, by this point in his life he has the swooping rescue thing pretty well down. 

What actually winds up happening is a lot less dignified. See, thing is, the path Hel leads him down is dark as anything, and just keeps getting darker the further they go—by the time they're halfway there, Tony couldn't see his own hand in front of his face if he tried, let alone where he's actually walking.

So what actually winds up happening is that Tony follows Hel to a meeting with the Lady Death with his head held high and his back straight, and instead of getting the dramatic entrance he'd hoped for, he walks straight into Loki. To add insult to injury, at first he doesn't even realize it's Loki he's walked into, and Tony has to handle a moment of ridiculous curiosity about what happens to people who literally walk into Death.

He manages to steady himself, mostly by catching the belt that loops around Loki's chest—which is his clue that it is Loki he's grabbed hold of, thankfully—and trusting Loki not to fall over. “Damn,” Tony says, under his breath, when his feet are fully back under him. “Which way should I be facing?” Tony's pissed at Loki, sure, because disappearing in the middle of a kiss and then not coming back for three days isn't an action set Tony finds endearing; despite that, though, Loki's maybe Tony's only ally in this place, and that means Tony has to put aside all that for later, and trust Loki now.

Loki doesn't answer out loud, but his hands do come up to rest on Tony's shoulders, and when Loki tries to move him Tony lets him. It makes Tony feel better, to be at least looking in the direction of Lady Death. Maybe that isn't logical, since he can't see anything regardless of which direction he's facing, but this way has Death in his sights and Loki at his back, and that's...better, somehow.

“Mistress Death,” Loki says, and Tony's surprised to hear Loki speaking in a fairly guarded tone of voice, without any added flattery or nuance. “I'd like to introduce my ally, Tony Stark of Midgard. With your permission, might I use my magic for light? Stark is unaccustomed to such darkness.”

“Of course,” a low, smooth female voice says, and Tony shivers. He can't help it, and it isn't that there's anything wrong with her voice, it's just—it's like the feeling Tony gets sometimes when he's alone, and suddenly for no reason his skin feels like ice and there's a shiver running down his spine. When Tony was a kid, his mother used to say that feeling was someone walking over his grave; Tony probably shouldn't be surprised that Death's voice alone can do that to him.

From just behind Tony, green fire flares to life in Loki's cupped hand, and for a second it's almost blinding after the long dark. Then Tony blinks a few times, and his eyes adjust; and when he opens them again, he's looking straight at the Lady Death.

Tony understands, all at once, why Loki never seemed comfortable with the thought of her—because Death is beautiful, there's no doubt about that, but there's just something not right about her, and Tony can't put his finger on what. It's like Tony knows he's looking at a beautiful woman, but he doesn't feel it, like he sees beauty and just feels...cold, feels nothing. “Lady Death,” Tony says, and hopes to hell he pulls off a smile instead of a grimace.

The Lady meets Tony's eyes directly, and Tony feels stripped bare and judged, and for that matter probably found wanting. Fuck, but he misses the days where his life involved two demigods and no other major forces of magic. “Tony Stark,” she says, and she does not smile.

When she looks away, turning to face Hel instead, Tony feels like he can breathe again. He tries not to visibly sag backwards; clearly he doesn't pull that one off, because Loki steps forward, until his shoulder is just barely touching Tony's opposite one. Tony can't really tell if that was meant to be a gesture of comfort, or a way to break Tony's fall in case he falls over, but either way it helps to remember he isn't here alone. “You were prompt in finding him, Hel,” Death says, and apparently her voice's effects aren't limited to when she's speaking to Tony, good to know.

“You asked that I be prompt,” Hel says, with a faint shrug that's barely visible under the line of her cloak. For all that she's Loki's daughter, Hel is standing away from the two of them, and she answers Death like she owes the Lady Death obedience. If someone had asked Tony maybe an hour ago, Tony would've said Hel was too self-possessed to answer to anyone; now, Tony can perfectly understand why Lady Death would be the exception. “I am good on my word.”

Just as Hel says that last, Loki leans forward and says, quietly enough that only Tony will hear it, “Look to your right.”

Tony, for once, obeys without question, darting a quick look off to his right, and then has to resist the urge to curse. He has no idea who that is, but between the purple skin and the clearly inhuman build, and the fact that the guy is _here_ of all places, Tony can make an educated guess. “Thanos?” he hisses back. This is just great—the situation wasn't nearly complicated enough, before they added a crazy death-loving god into the mix.

“The very same,” Loki says, sounding equally displeased at the thought, and then there's no more time to talk, because Death turns her focus back on them.

“Now that we are all gathered, and politeness observed,” and Lady Death's faint, sharp-edged smile at that definitely means something, but hell if Tony knows what, “I would speak of the purpose behind our meeting.”

“Good,” Thanos says, and maybe it's his voice or maybe it's the weeks Tony's spent disliking the guy from a distance, but Tony's suddenly feeling a strong urge to punch Thanos in the face, and fuck the fact that it would probably hurt Tony's hand more than it would the god. “That I am called away from my work to attend the concerns of small gods and mortals would be an insult from any soul but yours, my Lady.”

Tony isn't exactly going to be insulted by being called a mortal, but he's pretty sure that _small gods_ line is going to get under Loki's skin, and he's right—the line of Loki's shoulder tenses where it's pressed against Tony's, and even if the god of lies doesn't show any other outward signs of insult, that small movement is clear as day to Tony. What Tony doesn't expect is for the Lady Death to react more strongly than Loki does. Baring perfect white teeth, the Lady says, clearly, “Oh, but Thanos, I am _not_ your Lady. Though those gathered seem to forget as much, I belong to no one but myself.”

Before Tony really has a chance to process that, Death is looking at him and Loki both, and this time the look is like ice. “You, Loki, once called Odinson and cast off by Laufey, god of mischief and lies, think yourself skilled enough to deceive Death herself, and so play at courting me to give insult to Thanos. No,” she says, and cuts Loki off at the pass, “do not speak. I have heard quite enough of falsehood, even from a tongue so gifted as yours.”

“As for you, mortal,” Lady Death says, and turns her full, undivided attention on Tony, and Tony—Tony can't—it's _cold_. Everything pales, the green light of Loki's fire dying out and leaving Tony in the dark, except this dark is watchful and it freezes to the touch, and Tony feels himself freeze deeper than skin, feels everything in himself slow and leech away—

“You'll kill him,” a low, familiar voice says, rushing with anger.

Death looks away.

The first thing Tony feels is Loki's hand, pressed against his back and holding his weight—for the first time, Loki's touch actually feels warm to him. Then that warmth spreads, from the weight of Loki's fingers out, and suddenly there's color and light back in Tony's world, and Tony realizes he's shaking. “Fuck,” he says, involuntarily, and leans back against Loki's touch, needing to feel something solid. That was just—all that took was her eyes, all she had to do was look at him, she didn't even touch him. Tony's come close to dying before, but he's never really been acutely aware of his own mortality, until now. 

Death smiles, and for all that it looks like a friendly expression, it really, really doesn't seem like one to Tony right now. “Remember that, the next time you would use someone for your own gain.”

“What a lovely show,” Thanos says, a grin on his face that fades the moment Death turns to him.

“You think yourself exempt,” she says, and for all that her voice is soft, Tony's pretty much not buying that. “You, who would name yourself my great love, and yet think I will find you worthy should you end all life and strip me of my purpose. I have allowed your suit until now, but no longer.” Death steps closer to Thanos, her stride sinuous. Quieter than before, she says, “I knew another once, who sought to destroy all life; he was the making of me, the one who drove me to leave behind humanity and become as you see me today. If you ever happen upon him, you might do well to ask how well his attempt was received.”

When Thanos doesn't respond, the Lady turns away from all of them. “I will not be used by any man,” she says. “Try me again, and you will not find me to be so merciful.”

And then she's gone, without even the flash of light Tony usually associates with teleportation, leaving the four of them in her wake.

Almost immediately, Tony and Loki square off against Thanos—though exactly what good Tony's going to do without the Iron Man suit, he has no clue—but Thanos isn't attacking. In fact, Thanos is just...staring, at the space the Lady Death used to occupy, his expression completely blank. “I will ruin you,” Thanos says, without looking at either of them, and his tone is almost conversational. “As you have stripped me of what I love, so too shall you see that which you cherish burn before your very eyes. One by one, I shall destroy the things you hold dear, and when the last is gone I will take you from the razed ashes of your lives, and only then will I kill you.” Finally looking away from the empty space where Death stood, Thanos looks at Loki and smiles. “I'll kill the mortal first.”

Loki lets out a sound closer to a growl than a word, and a small, deadly looking blade flashes out from his fingers, thrown with uncanny accuracy—it only misses hitting Thanos right between the eyes because Thanos times his own teleportation perfectly, disappearing into the ether just in time to have the knife slice through only air and then clatter to the ground.

“Well,” Tony says, into the angry, disbelieving silence that descends after that, forcing levity into his voice. “That definitely could have gone worse.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yes. Tony and Loki's plan was designed to fail from the very start, mostly because I needed to piss off Death. Thing is, Thanos in the comics canon is given not only immortality, but also practical invulnerability, by Death; in the comics, it's acknowledged that his one great weakness is his subconscious desire to fail. Seriously, that's what they were left with, they made him so impossible to kill. I had no interest in writing Thanos deliberately throwing the fight, so I evened the playing field. *grins*
> 
> As ever, if you've gotten this far and enjoyed, feel free to drop a comment here or at my tumblr: http://skollwolf.tumblr.com/
> 
> I always love hearing from you guys.

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone wants to contact me off of this site, feel free to use my tumblr: http://skollwolf.tumblr.com/


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